


Breaking the Code

by Bawsanity (CrowsGirl15)



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Ginny needs his help anyway, Mike isn't a Padre, Phone Sex, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-23 19:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9672812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrowsGirl15/pseuds/Bawsanity
Summary: AU - Ginny is the hot new pitcher called up by the San Diego Padres. Mike Lawson is the aging catcher for the Dodgers, and Ginny’s childhood idol/crush. What begins as some help between rivals is complicated by a desperate move at the trade deadline.





	1. Debut

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Peavyfangirl (FikixBear)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FikixBear/gifts).



> This is a gift for peavyfangirl as part of the Pitch Secret Admirers exchange. They requested creative AUs, Mike’s beard, age gap smut, and baseball details.
> 
> The timeline of games/teams the Padres play go with the show, meaning Dodgers and then Giants are Ginny’s first two starts, which did not match with the 2016 schedule. AFTER those first two games, the schedule will match up for 2016 if Ginny’s first start is May 17th. So assume that’s right…at least until the end of the regular season. Also, the results won’t be the same, for both the Padres games and the season as a whole, but I figure you’ll forgive me.

In her wildest dreams, this wasn’t how Ginny pictured  her first start in the major leagues.

Not that she much imagined getting called up. After the accident, she’d never let her mind wander much farther than a few days in the future. Her next game, her next start, her next pitch. Dreams were dangerous. Dreams were risky. Dreams came crashing down in a heap of bent metal and broken glass on a North Carolina road after the greatest game of your life.

It was safer not to dream. Which was why Ginny hadn’t really considered her first start - hadn’t really considered becoming the first woman in the majors. But if she had, it wouldn’t have been like this. It wouldn’t have been with Derek Norris crouched behind home plate, signaling for a fastball for the third time in a row. It wouldn’t have been with the bases loaded in the first, 0 outs, and her body seemingly unwilling to throw a strike. It wouldn’t have been with her chest tightening and breath threatening to leave her altogether.

And it definitely wouldn’t have been with Mike Lawson at the plate, laser focused, staring at her like she was the enemy he needed to annihilate.

          ***

The day had gone about as mundanely as possible - if mundane included a letter from Hillary Clinton, an introduction to the media, and a clubhouse full of players who wanted to be anywhere but part of the Ginny Baker Show. Norris was nice enough, taking her into the trainer’s room away from prying eyes to go over the Dodgers’ hitters. His expression held a bit of doubt, but his voice was confident, and Ginny found herself wanting to perform for him. Wanting to show him what she could do. 

Despite the livid eyes of her teammates and some whispered insults floating around the clubhouse, the preparation part of her day flew by. Amelia made it calmer, Blip made it bearable, and Ginny could feel herself on the verge of greatness.

But, oh, the pressure.

The pressure she could feel from the moment she woke up until the moment she took the mound. Hard, crushing weight bearing down on her chest, holding her down. She could hear her father’s voice in her ear, telling her they “ain’t done nothing yet”, pushing her toward the mound, toward greatness, toward her legacy. She wanted to be great for him. She wanted to be great for all the little girls with their Ginny Baker signs. She wanted to prove her teammates wrong.

But with the amount of pressure bearing down, the amount of hot tension coursing through her veins, there was bound to be an explosion.

It came on the first pitch, sailing over Norris’s head into the backstop behind him. The second wasn’t better. Neither was the third. She felt keyed up, restless, all the things she never felt on the pitcher’s mound. She shook Norris off when he tried to approach - that unsure, doubtful expression flashing through her mind’s eye - and tried to center her concentration into the pitch.

          *** 

It didn’t work. And three walked batters later, here she was, a 3-0 count to her childhood hero, trying to ignore the look of mocking pity that had overtaken his features. Mike Lawson - the 16-year Dodgers veteran, darling of both the LA media and her childhood fantasies - looked at her like all the rest of them. And if she hadn’t felt the pressure to prove them wrong before, she definitely did now. Her hands shook with it, actually, and she balled them into fists to try and remind herself how to do this.

Norris called for a fastball. She shook him off.

He tried again. She shook him off more insistently.

With a moment of hesitation, he signaled a screwball, earning a nod from his rookie.

_Windup. Pitch._

She felt it as soon as the ball left her hand. The curve she’d intended didn’t come. The ball hung a moment over the plate, and that was a moment too long for a Hall of Fame hitter like Mike Lawson.

_Crack. Grand slam._

Ginny whipped her head around and cursed into her glove as the ball sailed over the fence, the shaking from her hands overtaking her entire body. She could feel the beginnings of a panic attack as Al and Norris approached the mound, the four Dodgers trotting across home plate.

“Get me out of the game,” she gasped toward her skipper, eyes resigned and harsh. Norris spoke some words of encouragement, but she was too far gone to hear him. The roar of the crowd had overtaken her, the taunts ringing in her ears, and she only found her focus when Al finally made the call.

On the way out, she raised her head to the Dodgers’ dugout, caught Mike Lawson at the top of the steps, taking off his gloves. The pity was gone from his expression now, replaced by something a bit harsher, a bit less discernable. He paused long enough to let their eyes meet, shaking his head and dropping it as she left the field. That was a face she knew well, and it _definitely_ wasn’t pity.

Mike Lawson thought she was a joke.

          ***

“We’re giving you one more shot, Rook. Don’t let us down.”

Al’s words rang in her ears as she closed the door behind Evelyn and leaned her forehead against it. She’d tried her best, but a couple drinks and some girl talk wasn’t going to be enough to distract Ginny from the war of words going on in her head.

They’d decided to give her another chance. Al and Oscar made the call the day before (together, surprisingly, which solidified her suspicions that both calling her up and keeping her around were not Al’s idea), letting her know that she would start again in 5 days against the Giants. To say she was surprised was an understatement. To say she was _petrified_ was not.

Evelyn had done her best to distract Ginny from reality. Bloody Marys, baby pictures, girl talk about seeing Matt Kemp in a towel that led to an outrageous story about him hitting on Evelyn last year before realizing the ‘Sanders’ at the end of her name was the same as his brand new outfielder. The drinks flowed, conversation came easier, and it worked for the time being. But as soon as Evelyn was out the door, the voices were back, and the pressure was pounding down once again. 

She heard the resignation in Al’s voice when he told her she’d get a second start. She heard Amelia’s pity, Elliot’s false encouragement. She filled in the blanks for her dead father, the “what the hell was that”s she knew would come if he were here. She heard the unspoken admonishment in Mike Lawson’s expression, the criticism lurking under the surface. ( _“Come on, she’s a gimmick! She’s the dwarf that played for the St. Louis Browns.”_ ) She heard it all. She couldn’t stop hearing it.

Two Bloody Marys, Ginny decided, was not enough to stop those voices from permeating her brain. She needed something more.

Taking out her phone, she searched the name of the closest bar that didn’t have ‘Padres games’ anywhere in the Yelp reviews. She settled on a hole in the wall about 3 miles from the Omni, and wondered momentarily if the driver Amelia had hired would be discreet enough to take her there and back without arousing her agent’s suspicion. She decided against it, instead ordering an Uber, pulling a hat down over her eyes, and walking to the lobby.

          *** 

The bar did not disappoint. At 10pm on Tuesday night, it was blessedly empty, save for a couple single patrons camped at the far end of the bar. Ginny opted for the other side, breaking open a few peanuts and ordering a beer. The bartender’s eyes flashed with recognition, but something in her expression must have discouraged him, because he slid her the beer and shook away her money before returning to his other patrons. 

She felt the eyes before she actually saw him, her own gaze trained down on the bar. But after a few minutes, it was hard to ignore that someone was watching her, and she looked up to lock eyes with none other than Mike Lawson.

 _Fuck_.

There he sat, giving her that few drinks in, amused look of recognition. She tried to look anywhere but in his direction, but the scenery in the small bar left something to be desired, and her gaze eventually found its way back to his body. His body that had risen from its barstool, beer in hand, and was now walking in her direction.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck_.

The curses ran through her mind, along with a silent battle over what to say. A big part of her was still angry. Sure, it wasn’t his fault that she’d had a miserable start, or even that he’d hit a grand slam, but that didn’t mean the memory felt _good_ . At the same time, however, that young, excited Ginny lurked underneath. The one that had imagined this moment. Imagined being in the same league as _the_ Mike Lawson. Imagined him approaching her as a colleague (maybe even a teammate, in another life) and not a fan. Imagined him talking to her for _real_.

“Ginny Baker, in the flesh,” he said too loudly when he approached, and she darted a quick, nervous eye around the bar. Luckily, all two other patrons were far too focused on their own drinks to notice, and she relaxed before looking up at him.

The silence stretched for a long moment, and his eyebrows rose in expectation. Oh, right, she should say something.

She cursed herself again over what came out. “I should tell you, I have your rookie card. You’ve been my favorite player since…”

“Yeah, don’t. It makes you look stupid. Makes me feel old.” She nodded and sucked a lip between her teeth. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s looked stupid in front of Mike Lawson in a 48 hour period.

“So they’re letting you stick around, huh?” She squeezed her eyes tight at the sound of his voice. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard rumors about _Mike Lawson: The Asshole_ , but she’d hoped she’d never have to see it in person. It looked like she wasn’t so lucky, and she spoke into her beer when she finally responded.

“That’s what they tell me.” Her voice was tight now, hard, and Mike’s snort caused her whole body to tense.

“Must be nice. To get another start when you gave up on your team.” Oh, good, the asshole was still there, still talking. And now he thinks he knows something about _her_ team. About _her_ game. It was almost surprising that no one had ever broken his nose. At least as far as she knew.

“Oh, so I was supposed to stay out there and fuck up the rest of the game? Lose it for us? Give everyone another reason to think the _woman_ doesn’t belong here….” She clucked her tongue and finished her beer.

“No one cares that you're a woman, Baker." 

She scoffed. “No one _cares_ that I'm a woman? So all those little girls with their signs? The sold out crowds? You think Maxim offered Blip the cover when he got called up?” He turned to his beer, face inscrutable. “You have no idea what this is like, superstar. So don't give me that, ‘no one cares’ shit. Everyone seems to have an opinion on whether they want me to succeed or fail. Including you.”

“Me?” His eyes widened incredulously.

“Don't pretend you're different. I saw that look when they took me out.”

He shook his head and downed his own beer. “That wasn't cuz you're a girl, Baker. That was cuz you quit.”

“I _quit?!_ ”

His cocked brow was almost cruel, and she felt the ice flowing through her veins once more. “What else would you call it? ‘Get me out of the game’? That's quitting.” She couldn't argue with that, and looked down at the bar in silent contrition.

“I mean, I get it,” he continued after a moment. “It was a shitty start and Norris wasn't doing you any favors. But you can't walk like that, Rookie. _That_ lets down your team a hell of a lot more than a bad start.”

Ginny looked up at Mike, mouth half open. That was a lot to notice in one at bat. She struggled for a response, and settled on the one thing she knew how to do. Defend her teammates. “My bad start wasn’t Norris’s fault. That was all me.”

Mike turned to look at her then, his face inscrutable. “That was the right thing to say, Rook,” his voice was soft, kinder with the compliment. “But it’s not true. He was trying to get you to throw out of rhythm. He doesn’t trust that screwball we all know you have, and then when he finally lets you call for it, you’re rattled and it hangs.” He gestured with his beer to emphasize the point, and Ginny found herself enraptured by his corrections.

“Oh yeah? So what would you do, then, superstar?”

When he spoke again, his voice had taken on a harder, more authoritative slant. “Where’s your glove?”

          ***

Though it was technically _her_ ballpark, and she did know her way around, Ginny still felt young and nervous with Mike trailing behind her. The indoor cages were blessedly empty when they arrived, and she put on the glove they’d retrieved from her hotel room before going to stand on the synthetic mound. Mike crouched right in front of the backstop, 60 feet, 6 inches away.

“Alright, let’s see that screwgie,” he directed, and pounded the spare glove with his fist before moving into position. 

 _Wind up. Pitch_.

It was a little high, but Mike snatched it out of the air, eyebrows raising in a way that looked almost impressed before tossing it back to her.

 _Another. Wind up. Pitch._  

That one went dead center, curving for a perfect strike. Mike nodded at that and threw it back. “Alright, fastball now…”

It went like that for a good 10 more pitches, Mike calling out the pitches since he didn’t know her signs. “Fastball. Screwgie. Curve.” One after another, most falling for strikes, a few breaking late enough that they’d cause any batter to swing. When he finally stopped, standing with a grunt and leaning back against the backstop, Ginny felt a wash of gratitude, and the weight of her bad start lifting from her shoulders. 

“See, here’s the thing, Rook,” he finally spoke, Ginny walking in his direction. “You have what it takes. You have the arsenal of pitches, you have the talent, you have the knowhow to use them. But it seems like you got a lot of people telling you who you’re doing this for, and I wonder if it’s not about time you start doing this for yourself. Just you. Screw all the attention.” 

She reached the backstop and turned to lean beside him.

“You’re a ballplayer,” he continued. “You do this for you, you do this for your team, or you don’t do it at all. Cuz you can’t aim your pitches if you’re aiming to please everyone.” 

She smiled softly and nodded as he came to a stop. “That was a good speech,” she murmured, earning a huff of a laugh from Mike.

“Yeah, well,” was all he said in return. Suddenly, Ginny was hyper aware of how close they were standing, shoulders brushing, her face near enough that if she just moved forward...and Mike seemed to be on the same page, shifting his body toward hers, leaning in just a bit...

A crash from somewhere in the clubhouse startled them both, forced them to pull back abruptly. A clubbie, no doubt, arranging the lockers for the next day’s game. The spell of the moment was broken, and Ginny sucked a lip into her mouth before turning back to him, his face all business once again.

“You’re a good captain, Mike Lawson,” she finally said.

“Yeah, well, I’m not yours, Rookie, so let’s keep this little session between us, ok? Can’t let it get out to my team that I’m helping the competition, no matter how lollipop her fastball may be.”

Ginny let out a false gasp and bumped him with her shoulder before pushing back and walking toward the door. “Well, thanks, Lawson. Hopefully I’ll see you next time.”

“Hang on,” he jogged to catch up to her and reached to pull her phone from her back pocket. Ginny’s breath caught at the proximity, though she prayed he didn’t hear it. He typed something in - presumably his number - before handing it back to her.

“You will, Baker,” he nodded, and it took her a second to remember what he was responding to. “Just trust your catcher, trust your talent, and you got this.”


	2. Second Chance

She did have it.

But it didn’t come easy. The morning after her bullpen session with Mike, Ginny called Norris to talk through what went wrong in her first start. They met at the gym, Ginny offering an apology for walking off ( _ “giving up”,  _ the Mike Lawson in her head corrected), and assured him it wouldn’t be happening next time.

No, next time, she intended to win.

The day of her second start, the pressure was still there, still bearing down on her chest, causing her breath to quicken. She still heard her father’s voice in her ear, telling her not to blow it. Telling her she didn’t deserve a second chance, but to make the most of it. She still saw the hostile apprehension in the eyes of her teammates, and the abject fear in Amelia’s. She’d given up everything for this too, Ginny realized. Her failing didn’t just affect her.

But this time, the voices were joined by one more. One that sounded suspiciously like a certain Dodgers catcher.

_           “You have what it takes. You have the arsenal of pitches, you have the talent, you have the knowhow to use them.” _

It became a mantra, chanting in her mind during her workout, during warmups, during the moment in the dugout before reality set in. But when she nodded at Norris and took the field, all the voices went blessedly quiet. No Dad, no Amelia, no Mike. Ginny was left with her own thoughts, her own encouragement.

And dammit, she had this.

The first pitch, an 86mph fastball down the center, slammed right into Norris’s mitt with a satisfying  _ thwack _ . The crowd roared up around her, but she stayed focused on the task at hand. Denard Span got a piece of the second fastball and grounded it to short for an easy out, Ginny’s first in the major leagues.

As the game progressed, Ginny grew more and more comfortable on the mound. This was always where she felt most at home. Her focal point, her happy place, the one corner of the world she could go to  _ escape _ the pressure. In game 1, she’d brought the tension with her, and it made her fail. This time, she let her body do what it always did. She let herself be comfortable with just  _ pitching _ .

It wasn’t a perfect start. Buster Posey got a piece of one of her hanging curveballs and knocked it out of the park. Later, in the 5th, she allowed an early Brandon Belt double that led to two more runs. But her teammates helped her out, and by the time she felt her velocity wane in the 7th, the Padres were up 4-3.

She tried to convince Al and Norris that she was good for one more, that she could keep going, but they all knew she was done. And when she walked off the field to the roaring crowd, Al’s voice was the only one left in her brain:

_ “As long as you’re gonna be sticking around, I’d like some order restored in my damn clubhouse.” _

Ginny could do that. Ginny could  _ definitely _ do that.

***

If she’d thought the circus after her failed first start was bad, it was nothing compared to what happened after her win. The media room had tripled to standing room only, the line for Ginny Baker autographs stretched around the block, and her teammates were even  _ more _ at each other’s throats. But the biggest difference this time was that Ginny was ready to handle it all.

She shook off the insults from Tommy, admonished Blip for fighting her battles for her, but she wouldn’t let a sexist asshole ruin her day. She had been the starting pitcher for the San Diego Padres. And she’d won.

Evelyn talked her into going out for a drink with them, her mom, Amelia, and Elliott, so by the time Ginny arrived back at her hotel room, her body was thrumming from both the win and the celebratory drinks. She knew she should sleep, but she was far too keyed up for that, practically dancing around her hotel room as she got undressed.

She considered going for a run, just to work out the energy. She thought about watching the highlights, just to see her win. She thought about having another drink.

But in the end, she pulled out her phone instead, getting settled against the headboard and scrolling through her contacts, her thumb pausing before dialing the number she wanted.

It took three rings for Mike Lawson to pick up.

“Hello?”

“You see my start, Old Man?” She’s not sure what made her so casual so quickly. Probably because she was three drinks in. Probably because she’d just had the best night of her life. Probably because there was something about Mike Lawson that bred familiarity, even if it was one sided.

He didn’t seem to mind. “Rookie, some of us have better things to do than watch the first woman in baseball lob slow curves over the plate,” she grinned and blushed a bit at the joke, far too happy to let his barbs get her. “I had a game of my own, you know.”

“Except your game was over at 6pm,” she teased.

“Why, Ginny Baker, have you been checking up on me?” She blushed again, because of course she had. Checking Dodgers scores had been her curb feeler since she was a kid. It had always been her way of centering herself, keeping calm. She’d checked about 15 times on her phone today before taking the mound herself, sure that it would keep her focused on the game. Not that she would tell him any of that.

“It’s in bright lights on our scoreboard, Lawson, it’s not exactly a tough thing to find out.” 

He laughed. It was a sound she liked  _ way _ more than she should. “Well, the softball you tossed to Posey didn’t help you any, but the rest of it looked alright.”

“So you  _ did _ watch. I knew you would.”

“Never said I didn’t.” He laughed again, and they fell into a comfortable silence. She wondered for a moment if maybe he wasn’t alone. His reputation was widely discussed, his exploits a regular feature on both TMZ and Deadspin. It was an early game, so it wouldn’t be out of character for him to have a groupie in his bed, but she’d leave it to him if he wanted to end the call.

“I think I owe you a thank you,” she finally said, glad he couldn’t see the nervous expression she was sure had overtaken her face.

“Nah, that was all you, Baker. Just needed someone to smack some sense in you is all.”

“All the same, thanks.”

“Anytime, Rook.” There was that silence again, warm and soft, almost familiar, despite the fact that this was the first time they’d spoken on the phone.

“So looks like I’ll see you in LA after all,” she tried, brightening a bit at his welcome huff. “Al said they’re keeping me around.”

“They’d be dumb not to, but that’s good to hear. Maybe I can take you for that drink I never got to buy you the other day.” They may have been 125 miles apart, but that didn’t stop the tension from crackling through the phone. Suddenly, this conversation seemed less friendly, less like an obligatory thank you. Ginny found herself questioning her own motives, and struggling for how to respond.

“Oh is  _ that _ what you were gonna do?” Is what came out, her voice suprisingly casual considering her heart had sped up.

_ Mike’s _ voice betrayed nothing. “Eh, maybe. After a day like that, anyone would need a drink.”

“And here I thought you came up to me because that animal that has taken up residence on your face had a mind of his own.”

“Hey, you love the beard.”

“I do not.”

“Lies.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Well, I might just take you up on that offer, if you can find it in your heart to fraternize with the enemy.” She let the image flit through her brain. A picture of the two of them belly up at another bar, on his turf this time. Two colleagues sharing a drink.  _ Friends _ .

“Well, though I generally have a code, I could make an exception for the second prettiest opponent I’ve ever had.”

“Damn straight,” she laughed out with a blush before furrowing her brow. “Wait, second prettiest?”

“Yeah, I played against Leonardo Dicaprio in a charity game. Beautiful eyes.”

She rolled her  _ own _ eyes at that one, clucking her tongue and shaking her head, even though he couldn’t see it. The tension from a moment ago still thrummed under the surface, but it was properly covered by sarcasm and casual barbs. “Well, it’s settled then. Drinks in July.”

“Drinks in July,” he made an affirmative sound and she stifled a yawn through the phone. “Well, I gotta get to bed, Rook. Not all of us get five days off after playing one baseball game.”

“Sleep well, Mike.” Her voice was softer, sweeter than intended, and he paused long enough that she was sure he noticed. She prayed he wouldn’t make it weird.

“You too, Baker.”


	3. Road Trip

Ginny Baker’s first month and a half with the Padres went off with barely a hitch. 6 quality starts in a row, a 3-1 record (the only real blemish being her fateful first start). Her ERA had been trashed by allowing 5 runs in her first inning, but she chipped at it, slowly but surely.

Her relationship with her team improved as well. Blip and Derek took it upon themselves to head the Ginny Baker Welcome Committee, inviting her to every team outing, forcing her teammates to come as well. She chipped away at them one by one. She won Sonny over by dancing to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” with him before a  _ particularly _ nerve wracking start. Stubbs she got by introducing him to one of her “female groupies” that was hanging near their table one night. Salvamini was tougher, but begrudgingly accepted her when his daughter started begging for a Ginny Baker jersey (which she happily supplied, signed and with a handwritten letter).

Tommy took the longest, still holding on to the fact that she was there to ‘take his spot’, even long after they both found a place in the rotation. She won  _ him _ over by beaning the guy who put him on the DL and inciting a brawl that Tommy was more than happy to risk his newly fixed hand to get involved in.

So, her team was happy. The media had finally started to focus their attention elsewhere. Amelia was thrilled by a Nike contract that was starting to come to fruition.

And then there was Mike.

Since she was 15-years-old and got her heart broken by Jimmy Wade, Ginny had stood by a certain code. See, Jimmy had been a nice guy. The kind of teammate you wanted on your side; the kind of teammate who would have your back in the hallways when the mean girls made fun of your worn Keds and flat chest. He was the kind of teammate who would wait for you after practice to make sure you got home safe, and kiss you in the treehouse behind your house because he’d ‘never met a girl like you before’.

Unfortunately, Jimmy was also the kind of teammate who would pretend it never happened when word got around that perfect, big-boobed Cheyenne Johnson wanted him to ask her to the Homecoming dance.

So, Ginny Baker had a code. And while she may have strayed once in the minors, she stood by it now: Ballplayers are off limits.

But, fully aware she playing with fire, Ginny just couldn’t help herself each time she picked up the phone to find Mike Lawson on the other end. Every giggle, every bite of her lip, every flirtatious comment about his game or hers, they were all dangerous, but she let it go on without comment. There was something about Mike that made her want to push the limits.

She was hyper aware of the fact that she’d never mentioned her ‘code’ to Mike. She had tried a few times, but the words just didn’t seem to want to come. It seemed presumptuous, in a way. As much as she may like to toy with the idea that, in another life, Mike Lawson would be interested in her, she couldn’t completely fool herself. She was a far cry from the models and groupies he usually went for. She wasn’t exactly Rachel Patrick…

But she let the flirting continue all the same. Let her code go unsaid. And let her phone calls with Mike become an unexpected highlight of an already exciting month.

          ***

“So, I hear we’re getting the pleasure of a Ginny Baker start during our home stand next week. The ticket office must be thrilled.” Ginny was laid out on the hotel bed, icing her shoulder after a particularly grueling start. (She didn’t tell Mike about the ice. He may be a nice guy, but opponents definitely don’t need a weakness they can exploit). The LA road trip was fast approaching - just a quick trip to Arizona tomorrow and then it was finally time for their long awaited ‘reunion’ of sorts.

“Yep, Game 1. I hope you know you won’t be getting that junk I threw you last time. You better be ready,” she teased and shifted the ice down on her shoulder.

“Baker, you may be the first rookie I’ve hit  _ on _ , but I’ve been hitting  _ off _ them for years,” he teased back, the words causing Ginny’s breath to catch in her throat. It wasn’t the first time he’d made a comment like that, but her insides still fluttered in a way that was a little too far to be friendly.

“Yeah, well, you already got your grand slam off me, Old Man, I won’t be doing you any more favors.”

“Oh, is that what that nonsense was? A favor?” They both laughed, comfortable and easy, the month’s worth of phone calls only solidifying their ability to find peace in the silence.

“You know, you still owe me that drink…” she finally murmured out, almost shy, biting her lip as if to hold in the comment.

“Hey, time and place, Rookie. I have a list full of things I’ve just been waiting to correct you on since the last time we saw each other.”

A groan and a laugh was all he got in response, and they settled back into their silence. In four days, this was going to be something that could actually happen, and Ginny would be lying if she denied the mix of apprehension and fluttery excitement that had taken up residence in her stomach. Code or no code, she wanted to see him. She wanted to thank him in person. She wanted to hear this apparent  _ list _ of corrections he’d been compiling.

As usual, Mike broke the silence. “Thursday night. After your start. We can go to this place near the hotel, I’ll text you the address.”

“Thursday night.” She agreed, and bit her lip once again as she considered the implications.

“Now don’t get cold feet on me, Rook. It’s gonna happen.”

          ***

Ginny found that focusing on baseball kept the cold feet at bay, which was fortunate, as that was exactly what she had to do anyway. Just two games behind the Dodgers and four games back from the 1st place Giants, the Padres  _ needed _ those LA wins. So she pushed any apprehension about drinks with Mike Lawson far back into the recesses of her brain. Right now? They needed to win.

And win they did, thanks in large part to a stellar showing by one Ginny Baker. If any part of her thought she’d be distracted by the presence of her secret coach/late night phone partner, it was quickly silenced by the laser focus that overtook her body as soon as she saw him in the Dodgers dugout. Nerves went out the window. If anything, she wanted to show him  _ exactly _ what she could do.

That laser focus resulted in an 8-inning, 1 run game in which she threw just 101 pitches. It was a beautiful display, a sight to behold. The one run  _ did _ come on a Mike Lawson double (he really seemed to have her number), but despite that, Ginny was flying high by the time she settled into the dugout to watch Butch close out the game. He did a masterful job of his own, and the Padres recorded a 4-1 victory.

The excited, high feeling stayed with her through the postgame press conference, and carried her all the way back to her hotel room to get ready for the bar. She considered momentarily that Mike may not be up for this after the loss, but she shook the thought away. He’d been doing this a lot longer than she had. If anyone knew how to compartmentalize a loss, it was Mike Lawson.

Focusing on her wardrobe, Ginny almost didn’t hear the knock on the door, and furrowed her brow as she opened it to find Evelyn Sanders with a bottle of wine.

“Woah” was the first word out of her friend’s mouth as she took in Ginny’s lightly curled hair and short black dress. “What am I interrupting?”

Ginny rolled her eyes and stepped aside to let her enter. “Nothing, Ev, just going to meet some people for a drink.” Ok, so the  _ some people _ was a bit of a lie, but it was at least the spirit of the truth. She dug in her bag and pulled out a pink lipstick to apply in the small bathroom mirror.

“What  _ people _ ?” Evelyn narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“Just  _ people _ ,” Ginny tried again, grateful for Evelyn’s silent acceptance.

“Fine, let me come with you!” Ginny froze, going through all the options in her head for how to talk Evelyn out of it.

“Shouldn’t you be with your husband?” There,  _ that _ should work.

“He’s out,” she waved her hand. “His agent, some party, I don’t know. I ducked out to hang out with you, so let me hang out with you.”

Based on her slight lie, Ginny didn’t have a great reason for why Evelyn shouldn’t join her. Not to mention the fact that this was supposed to be a casual drink between colleagues, not anything resembling a date. There’s no reason for Evelyn not to be there, because there’s nothing to hide. Meeting for drinks with an opponent wasn’t against the rules. It wasn’t a secret. It was just a drink between friends.

She almost believed her inner monologue.

All the same, she acquiesced to Evelyn’s request and let her tag along, giving the address Mike had provided to the Uber and heading to another hole in the wall bar, remarkably similar to where they’d met in San Diego.

Mike Lawson was camped out at the other end of the bar when they walked in, and his reaction when he saw her put every bit of Ginny’s inner monologue into question. His eyes went wide in what could only be described as shock, and he trailed his gaze up and down her body before settling on her face. He moved to stand, but paused when his eyes fell on Evelyn, narrowing and settling back into his seat.

_           Well, this will be awkward. _

She guided Evelyn over to the bar and signaled for drinks, smiling over at her friend in a way she hoped didn’t come across as false. “So who are we meeting?” Ev questioned as she lifted her vodka martini.

“Not sure they’re here yet…” Ginny purposefully avoided any looks in Mike’s direction and kept her expression as steady as possible as they drank, the plastered smile serving as a mask.

Of course, Evelyn saw right through it.

“Hey, Ginny?” She started after a quick look around the bar. “Why is Mike Lawson staring at you like you’re a waterfall and he’s been stuck in the desert for five years?”

“Colorful, Ev…” She rolled her eyes, trying to hide her hot cheeks.

“Seriously, Gin, what’s going on?” Ginny sighed and looked down at her drink, wiping her lips as she met Evelyn’s eyes once more.

“Well...Mike Lawson may have been one of the people I was meeting here tonight.” The words came slow and deliberate, trying to give away as little as possible.

It didn’t work.

“One of the people, huh?” Evelyn’s eyes betrayed every bit of her amusement, and Ginny regretted every bit of letting her come.

“Fine. Fine, Ev, ok? He was the only person. I was supposed to meet him for a drink, and then you wanted to come, and then...here we are.”

Evelyn’s let out an excited noise that just made Ginny shake his head. “How do you even  _ know _ Mike Lawson?”

“He helped me out after that horrible first start, that’s all. We’ve talked a little bit…” She shrugged.

“A little…” Evelyn let out another slight squeal and squeezed at Ginny’s elbow. “Eeee, he’s coming over.”

Ginny rolled her eyes but stole a glance through her eyelashes to catch Mike rising from his barstool and walking in their direction. She shook off Evelyn’s vice-like grip and took a sip of her martini.

_           Play it cool, Baker. _

“Ladies.” Mike flashed his media smile and leaned over to offer his hand to Evelyn. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced. Mike Lawson.”

“Evelyn Sanders.” She shook his hand and Ginny saw a flash of recognition in his eyes.

“Blip Sanders?” He tried, and she nodded. “Quite the outfielder. Not that he had much to do today with this one dealing.” He nodded to Ginny, and she blushed to the compliment. “Until me, of course.” There it was, the narcissistic comeback, and Ginny rolled her eyes with a laugh.

“Sure, Old Man, keep telling yourself that.”

“As long as you keep getting tight on a 1-2 count, I will keep hitting it, Rookie. That’s just a fact.” She shook her head at that and finished the rest of her martini. “You need a refill?” He cocked a brow at her, and she nodded with a gesture at the empty glass.

“That’s why we’re here, right?”

Evelyn looked downright apoplectic at the exchange, and reached to squeeze at Ginny’s wrist again when Mike looked away to order, a full conversation warring behind her eyes. “Um…” she finally spoke, her voice somewhat hoarse. “I’ve got to get going. I’ve got...my husband will be getting back soon, I should go make sure everything went ok with the sponsors.”

Ginny swallowed a grin at the lie and shook off her hand, but before she could even say goodbye, Evelyn had spun away into the night, leaving her alone with the subject of her childhood fantasies.

“Guess it’s just us now, Baker,” Mike slid into Evelyn’s vacant seat and handed her the martini. She nodded her thanks and took a sip before stealing another glance around the bar. “Looking for someone?”

She shook her head and focused back on him. “Just checking for cameras.” And then, by way of explanation, “My life has gotten a little intense over the last month and a half.”

“Don’t want to be seen with the competition?” He teased.

“Oh, yeah, cuz that’s exactly what I need,” she laughed and put her hands up in a mock newspaper headline. “Is Ginny’s New Lover Making Her Soft Against the Dodgers?”

Mike cocked a brow again. She kind of liked that look. “Lover, huh?”

She should have been embarrassed by the slip, but she shrugged instead and sipped her drink. “You’re not that special. Every man I’ve been seen with in the last month has been labeled my ‘lover’. Including married teammates and family members.”

He laughed. “Well, there are worse things for the press to be wrong about.”

“It’s a bit of a hassle. Tough to explain to every tabloid journalist that you wouldn’t cross that line. Not that they’d believe me…”

“What line?”

She thought about the best way to respond to that, and ultimately settled on the truth. “I have a code. No criminals or baseball players.”

The silence that settled after that line was a lot less comfortable than the rapport they’d developed on the phone. Mike looked away, lost in his drink, and Ginny tried to think of the best way to change the subject. As usual, he broke the silence. “No exceptions?”

It was a loaded question, maybe even an invitation, and Ginny inwardly cursed herself at how long she waited to respond. It was an easy answer. ‘No, Mike, no matter how many times I may have fantasized about your tree trunk thighs as a 16-year-old, I won’t make an exception for you.’ But, for some reason, the words got stuck in her throat. She took a long drink of her martini to clear it out.

“No exceptions.” She finally said, looking to meet his eyes, and he nodded with a half smile and a slight shrug.

“Fair enough.”


	4. All-Star

It was one day later when Ginny got the call.

Drew Pomeranz had tweaked his shoulder. It wasn’t anything to worry about, but it was enough to make him pull out of the All-Star Game and take a much needed 3 days of rest. Most people thought that Sonny would be picked to join Blip on the team, considering he was the number one starter, and she felt downright guilty when the phone rang on the Sunday before the game.

They wanted  _ her _ .

She spent the next day and a half avoiding her teammates, most of whom were content to ignore her completely, while the rest made small, hurtful comments under their breath.  _ Joke. Fraud. Bitch. _ Any steps she’d made at winning them over had apparently been erased by her selection, and she considered calling the league back and forcing them to rescind the offer.

Some wise words from Al and a story about his wife pulled her out of that crazy line of thinking, but she couldn’t help but feel like her teammates might have a point. That she might just be alienating them more by looking out for herself. That being ‘one of the guys’ meant that she’d end up on an island of her own.

Other than Blip, there was just one person in the clubhouse Ginny could count on to always tell her the truth. And the next day, when most of the team was packing up for the break, she found her way over to where Derek Norris was unwrapping compression tape from his calf.

“Baker,” Derek nodded at her approach, and she bit her lip as she slid next to his locker.

“Norris, let me ask you a question,” she squeezed a tennis ball, working on grip strength, trying to keep the conversation as business-like as possible.

“Shoot,” he grinned, a look generally reserved for his fiancee or a multi-strikeout game. She smiled back, trying to find the words.

“You were an All-Star last season.” She almost expected him to tense, but she was instead granted an amused, half smile.

“I was, yes.”

“And you’re not this year.” 

He shrugged and went back to his calf. “That’s true.” 

“So why aren’t you pissed as hell at me for taking a spot you should be getting?” It wasn’t common for Ginny to be that up front with her teammates. She wanted to be ‘one of the guys’, and sometimes, ‘one of the guys’ meant putting on a macho bravado that she wouldn’t otherwise. But she was comfortable with Norris. Comfortable enough that she could be blunt, and maybe even a little vulnerable, and he wouldn’t hold it against her.

“Look, Ginny, what do you want me to say? Do I wish I was an All-Star with the game in town? You bet your ass I do. Do I think a rookie who’s been in the league for two months deserves a spot? Eh, not really,” he met her eyes at that. “But what good does harping on that do me? I play the game I love with people I genuinely like, and one of those people is you.” He gestured at her, and her cheeks colored slightly, hand squeezing the tennis ball a little harder. “Let them honor you, Baker. With all the shit they put you through this year, the least they can do is let you pitch an inning and tip your hat to the crowd.”

She nodded, accepting him at his word. She was struck for a minute by how much she loved playing with Norris. He was a straightforward guy, told it like it was. She knew he had to be nervous with Livan Duarte shooting up through the minors and trade talks swirling every minute, but he somehow managed to be a good friend and solid teammate all at the same time.

Nodding her thanks and clapping him on the arm, Ginny felt a weight lifted off her shoulders. She felt like she could breathe again. She felt like she was doing the right thing by saying yes to the All-Star Game.

          ***

_           Thwack _ .

Ginny barely had time to register the ball flipping toward the plate before Salvador Perez was making contact and hitting it out of the park. She cursed into her glove and looked up at the sky, almost unwilling to believe that  _ one pitch _ in the All-Star Game was enough to make her look like a fraud to the millions of people that had already doubted her.

She had spent the entire day getting used to the idea of being an  _ All-Star _ . The pomp and circumstance, the reporters asking her inane questions, the out of town fans cornering her for autographs and posing in their brown and yellow throwback jerseys. Always caught up in the stress of the  _ game _ , Ginny was surprised at her ability to give into the pure joy of the weekend. This wasn’t supposed to be pressure. The All-Star Game was supposed to be  _ fun _ .

Fun. She remembered fun.

She knew Mike would be sitting out the game - “this back of mine can’t take it, Rook”, he’d told her on the phone the night before - so she was surprised to see him in the lineup anyway, tipping his cap to the San Diego crowd. She felt a rush she refused to name at the sight of him, and bit her lip at the covert wink he threw her way.

“All-Stars, Ginny!” Blip had come up behind her and squeezed her shoulders as they looked out on the field, earning him a turn and a wide grin.

“Who'da thought, right? Two kids from the middle of nowhere…” She grinned at the field, and cheered harder than anyone when Blip hit a leadoff single in the second.

But any cheer and excitement was completely erased now, with Salvi Perez trotting the bases and Buster Posey sending her soft, pitying glances from behind the plate. She made it through the rest of the inning without incident, but the damage had been done. This is what they would be asking about after the game. This is what they’d be talking about on SportsCenter. This would be the lasting memory of her first All-Star Game.

She plastered a false smile across her face as she cheered for the National League and subjected herself to the post-game media scrum outside the locker room. She let Amelia introduce her to a representative from Gatorade, and even posed for a few Instagram pictures that Eliot would expertly release over the course of the night. But she couldn’t get the image out of her head. The home run played like a technicolor dreamscape while she got undressed and into her private shower (thank God for Petco), and no matter how much she tried to tell herself it was ‘just the All-Star game’, she couldn’t shake the tension from between her ears.

Back in her private area, Ginny finally risked a glance at her cell phone, sure there was nothing on it she wanted to see. There was a message from her mom about how proud she was (she hadn’t been able to make it down with the short notice. What else was new?), a text from Will teasing her while also asking for tickets to next week’s game, and, surprisingly, a text from Evelyn, who she’d seen just moments before.

_ You want to watch this _ was all she wrote, with a video link attached.

Ginny settled on her stool to watch the clip,  surprised to see Mike Lawson in a suit, behind a desk, and her name emblazoned on the topic bar.

“...I’m sure that Ginny was hoping to get him to chase one there…”

The clip started with Mike listing her stats along with a few of Perez’s, and Ginny wondered why Ev wanted her to see this. Was she so hard up for details that Mike just saying Ginny’s  _ name _ was enough to get her excited?

It was 30 seconds before she figured it out.

“...yeah, she left one over the plate, and a great hitter got a hold of it. And now there’s gonna be even more talk about how she never deserved to be here in the first place. But let me tell you something, this girl, this  _ woman _ is a gamer. She’s a total gamer. It doesn’t matter what you throw at her, she gets back up. Hell of a lot stronger than I am, that’s for sure.”

Ginny felt her heart catch in her throat as her eyes stayed trained on the small screen in front of her. Mike went on to comment on some rumor about Duarte being called up, but it was all background noise to the ringing in Ginny’s ears. He’d said  _ that _ about her on national television. Millions of people watched that broadcast, and her childhood hero, the man whose poster had adorned not just her bedroom walls but the closet, the garage, and her locker at school had called her a  _ gamer _ .

Men had been calling Ginny beautiful since she was 19-years-old. She was used to the compliments, used to the stares she got from across a bar. She didn’t need to be stuck up to know that men were interested in her body, and her giggle, and the way she flipped her hair. But to have a man say those things about her  _ game _ was a whole different thing. To have someone respect her as a ballplayer was all she ever wanted.

The way Ginny saw it, she had two choices. She could go find Amelia and hitch a ride back to the hotel. She could shoot a text to Mike, thanking him for what he said, maybe even call him to let him rib her about the home run for a while before bed. She could take a cold shower in her hotel room and try to ignore the images that were swirling around her brain about  _ exactly _ how she wanted to thank Mike Lawson.

Or she could go with option 2.

          ***

30 minutes later, Ginny found herself poised at Mike’s hotel room door, trying to will her hand to knock. She thought for a minute that she was crossing a line somehow. Sure, it had just been a quick elevator ride from the place that she’d called home these last two months, but there was still something about invading his personal space like this that made Ginny feel dirty.

Then she remembered the way he said “woman” on the air today, and all bets were off.

She knocked gently, and worried her lip with her teeth, thinking of all the ways this could go wrong. He could have a groupie in there - probably did have a groupie in there - oh, god, what if he had a groupie? Ginny bit down a little harder and wiped her palms on the lycra of her pants, heart speeding up as the door creaked open in front of her.

“Baker.” He sounded surprised, clad only in a pair of sweats and a white t-shirt that probably fit better about 5 years ago, but now stretched across his chest in a way that drove her to distraction.

“Hi,” she said stupidly, swallowing hard before trying again. “Can I come in?”

He narrowed his eyes slightly, no doubt weighing the pros and cons of her crossing the threshold, but after a moment he stepped aside and let her follow him, the door closing behind her. “What’s up, Rook? Need some more tips? Not pitching a low fastball to Salvi Perez probably would have been better  _ before _ the game.”

“I heard what you said about me.” He paused and turned to look at her, a half smile stretched across his face.

“On the air? I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about the other female major leaguer.” His voice was light, teasing, and Ginny rolled her eyes but couldn’t fully shift her focus from the fact that they were alone. In his small hotel room. With a bed just 10 feet away.

“Well just in case you  _ were _ talking about me,” she teased back, “I wanted to thank you. It’s been...a tough week with people thinking I don’t deserve to be an All-Star. It was nice to hear at least one person had my back.”

Her body moved toward his almost unconsciously, and she could tell he noticed by the apprehensive once over he sent in her direction. “You came all this way just to thank me?” She  _ should _ have explained that it was about a 100 foot journey from her door to his. She didn’t.

“Well, the best thank yous are definitely in person, don’t you think?” It wasn’t a line, not in the traditional sense, but it had enough heat behind it that she could see Mike swallow with the implication. She was right there now, right in front of him. If she leaned in just enough…

“I thought you had a code, Ginny,” his low voice did nothing to discourage her behavior, especially not hearing him use her first name for the first time. Neither did the way his tongue darted out to lick his lips and his hand anchored itself on Ginny’s hip.

“Let’s pretend I don’t,” she rasped out, leaning into the touch. “Just...tonight. Let’s pretend I don’t.”

And it was on.

Mike used that large palm to slide around to her back and haul her into his body, his lips slanting down to capture hers in a deep, strong kiss. He sucked, and licked, and buried a hand in her loose curls, and Ginny couldn’t remember being kissed like this  _ ever _ . Most men were cautious, tried to treat her like a gentle, elegant  _ lady _ who could break and cry.

Mike kissed like he wanted to swallow her whole.

When they finally pulled apart, gasping for air and both trying to catch their breath, she felt herself reeling at just the  _ look _ that had taken residence in his eyes. His pupils were wide, dark, and she could see the shine of want flashing through them from somewhere inside. Ginny was positive the same expression was mirrored on her end, and now that this thing had started, there was no way either of them was going to stop.

“You sure about this?” Mike’s brow furrowed, but his thumb massaged small circles into Ginny’s hip in a way that would have prevented her from making a rational decision even if she  _ wasn’t _ so sure.

Her answer came in the form of a second kiss, and she wrapped her arms around his neck this time to anchor him to her body.

Hands went everywhere, grabbing at hip, and ass, and shoulders. Somewhere in the fray he managed to pull her shirt from her torso and she returned the favor in kind. He struggled momentarily with the thick lycra sports bra that had trapped Ginny’s breasts, but she stepped back long enough to pull it over her head and toss it away, standing in front of him in just a pair of skin tight workout pants.

“Damn, look at you…” he murmured as he stepped backwards, knees hitting the edge of the bed, and he crumpled downward, tugging Ginny up to straddle his leg. “Talk about  _ in the flesh, _ ” he teased, and earned a soft chuckle from deep in her throat that quickly turned into a moan when he started sucking at her neck.

“God, Lawson…” she hissed out as he nibbled at her pulse point, her hips grinding downward slightly, heat obvious through the performance lycra. She was so turned on it would have been embarrassing, except she could feel where his cock was hardening rapidly against her thigh. Testing the waters, she rolled her hips down once, and the way the hard muscle of his thigh pressed against her pants caused another moan to escape her lips.

His expression was light, almost teasing as they settled into a slow rhythm, Ginny shifting until the muscle was working the seam right against her clit. Her fingers dug hard enough into his shoulders to leave bruises, and Mike responded by grabbing her ass and guiding her grinding hips against him. She was hot, turned on, and overwhelmed…

She was close.

Ginny gasped in surprise as she felt the orgasm start to build, and looked up to meet his eyes, an expression of amusement and awe reflected back at her. She ground her hips down, over and over, the heat starting to pool in her chest and spreading downward to her stomach, her groin, and finally out of her, vision exploding with color as she came from just a short ride on Mike Lawson’s thigh.

She was panting again when she came back down to Earth, clinging to his shoulders before resting her forehead down on one of them. “I’m...not usually that easy…” she chuckled as his large palms guided along her bare back. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re apologizing?” His voice was incredulous as he stood her back up. “That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen…” His blush showed he meant it, and Ginny got to work helping him peel her out of her now soaking wet lycra and panties before pulling off his own sweats and going to join him on the hotel mattress.

Ginny’s not sure what she  _ thought _ Mike Lawson would be like in bed. From the tell all stories of groupies on Deadspin, she expected him to be a bit more selfish, a bit more narcissistic. She expected him to treat her orgasms like an afterthought, and pound that truly impressive cock into her body. She expected it to be good, but more about the  _ experience _ than the actual sex.

What she  _ didn’t _ expect was for Mike to push her up against the headboard and bury his head between her thighs.

He got her off twice like that. Once quickly, her thighs bracketing his head and pressed against his ears, and a second, softer time right after by just lapping at her clit with the flat of his tongue. She felt spinny and out of control. She felt like she was floating somewhere above the bed, looking down at the scene. She pulled him in for a long slow kiss, the taste of her all over his lips and beard. It only served to blow her out more as she clung to his body, decisively overwhelmed.

And he hadn’t even gotten inside her yet.

Mike fumbled with the wallet on his nightstand and retrieved a fresh condom packet, looking at her once more with raised eyebrows to check in. “This ok with you?”

She nodded vigorously. “More than ok,” she assured him, and, to prove it, she snatched the condom from between his fingers and opened it herself, bringing it down to slide over his truly impressive cock.

If he’d looked big from afar, and felt big in her hand, it was nothing compared to the way it felt to have Mike Lawson pushing inside her, stretching out her pussy, more pliant than usual after coming three times in a row. All the same, she could feel her body grip him like a vice when he finally reached the hilt, and dug her fingers into his spine to spur him forward.

“God, Ginny, do you know how tight you are?” He whispered in her ear as he slowly worked his way in and out. “Thought I was gonna come just pushing inside you, baby, that’s how tight you are. God you feel so fucking good…”

The words went on like that for what felt like an eternity, hot, dirty phrases that made Ginny press her hips up to meet Mike and bracket her legs around his thighs. But trying to meet him halfway was pointless, as every time she got  _ close _ to taking the upper hand, he would push her hips back down with his giant hands and rail her into the mattress. Ginny didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything at the moment but helping Mike get to where he needed to go.

She wasn’t sure she’d be able to come again. Three orgasms had already surpassed what she  _ thought _ was her limit, and the idea of another struck her as almost painful. But then she felt the telltale heat pooling in her stomach. Felt her skin go hot and prickly. Felt her cunt start to tighten around Mike’s gigantic cock.

In the end, they came together, Ginny shaking out a weak orgasm as Mike emptied inside her, clinging to her skin, the sheets, anything he could get his hands on before finally collapsing downward, half on top of her body.

They didn’t speak for a long moment, catching their breath, and Mike taking the time to roll off the bed and discard the condom before climbing back in beside her. Despite the fact that this man had just been balls deep inside her, Ginny felt a sudden shyness at laying naked in Mike Lawson’s bed. The nerves that she thought she’d left at the door were back, and she suddenly couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do with her hands.

Mike let out an exasperated sigh and pulled her into his side, his arm anchored around her shoulders. “Baker,” he murmured against her hair. “Ginny.” He tried again when she didn’t respond. “Relax.”

She laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion, but it seemed to do the trick. Her body softened in his arms, settled into the embrace as her fingers trailed absently along his chest and up to run through his beard.

“It’s growing on you, isn’t it?” He teased, and she felt his jaw working with the words. If she was honest, the beard had been more of a turn on than she expected, especially when he was rubbing it against her opening as his lips sucked at her clit. She could get used to a beard like that...not that there would be any getting used to.

“I’ll make a pros and cons list when I get home. Let you know for sure.”

His laughter echoed in the quiet hotel room, only dying down when they both settled into sleep.


	5. Trade Deadline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely inadvertently stole the inspiration for the first line from @threeguesses and @lowriseflare, and didn’t realize it until I was editing. Please forgive me!

Two things happened the week after Ginny sleeps with Mike in Los Angeles: she officially signed her contract with Nike, and Livan Duarte got called up to the majors.

After Oscar signed him earlier in the year, Duarte’d been toiling in Triple A, just  _ waiting _ for the brass to deem him ready for the big time. Everyone knew it wouldn’t take long. Despite rumors of attitude problems and a diva demeanor, Duarte’s bat was too big a positive for a team making a playoff push. So as the Padres inched slowly upward into the second wildcard position, Livan Duarte made his first appearance in the clubhouse.

A to be expected consequence of having Duarte around, Norris’s attitude went from carefree, ‘it’ll all work out’ to surly and downright angry. He snapped at the team, snapped at Al, snapped at Ginny until she dragged him into the trainer’s room and actually smacked him on the back of the head for being an idiot.

“He’s just a rookie, man, don’t let him drive you crazy.”

But she also knew the words were empty and meaningless. It took two days for Duarte to get a shot in the lineup, and three before Norris had been relegated to backup status. Ginny could tell he was livid, and couldn’t blame him for it, but she also felt rather helpless in her quest to work with yet  _ another _ catcher, this time on a tough DC road trip.

“Hey, Livan,” she called out, taking the bus steps two at a time to catch up with his retreating form. He didn’t do her the courtesy of stopping, but at least turned his head to look at her. Progress.

“Do you want to take a few minutes to go over the hitters for tomorrow? I had some trouble with the Nationals last time around.” They made their way into a rather lavish Washington hotel, blocks from Nationals Park. Once again, Livan didn’t slow his pace, and Ginny had to take two quick steps at a time to keep up.

“Relax, Mami, I got you,” he winked, and she rolled her eyes as they stepped into the elevator.

“Okay,  _ Papi _ , that’s good to know, but I’m still gonna need a bit more of a plan than that.”

“I don’t like plans.” He sifted through his bag to find a room key, and Ginny shot a bewildered look in his direction.

“I’m sorry?”

“Plans, Mami, that’s not how I operate. You’ll learn soon.” He patted her shoulder before exiting the elevator, one floor below hers. “I prefer to do things by feel.” And Ginny was left wide-eyed as the door closed behind him.

          ***

“By  _ feel _ . Can you believe that?!” She exclaimed to Mike not two hours later, catching up on the phone after a particularly strong, 2 home run game for him. “I mean, I knew he was a diva, but this is fucked up!”

Mike let out a good-natured chuckle over the line, and she rolled her eyes before collapsing back on her hotel bed. “You think I’m overreacting?”

“Nah, you’re not overreacting, Rookie, I just don’t know why anyone is surprised. Livan Duarte’s been like that since the minute he picked up a bat. Did anyone think he’d change?”

“Maybe they hoped…” she grumbled. “Besides, he may have done this 1000 times but it’s _ my _ first start with him tomorrow. And I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with a catcher who won’t even talk through the plan.”

Their silences these days were a bit less calming than they once were. Since the morning after their slip up in San Diego, Ginny had been trying to pretend that nothing had changed between them. They’d talked over a cup of bad hotel coffee, insisted that this was a one time thing. He teased her about the beard, kissed her goodbye, and that was that. Since then, they didn’t bring up the fact that they knew the curves of each others’ bodies. Didn’t bring up the words they’d exchanged while falling asleep. Didn’t discuss the fact that he knew  _ exactly  _ how she tasted.

But, oh, did Ginny think about it. She couldn’t stop thinking about it, actually. She couldn’t stop picturing Mike’s face when he came, or the way he tasted of sex, and sweat, and  _ her _ when she kissed him. The way he seemed to anticipate her needs, and show downright pride when he hit the right spot.

She wanted to forget about what had happened. Wanted to push it aside, pretend that it really  _ was _ a one time thing. But every time she came close to forgetting, some flash of a memory would send her spiraling, and she’d need to shove a hand between her legs just to release the tension.

“You’ll be fine,” Mike finally spoke, and she reached  to remember what they were talking about. Right. Duarte. And what the fuck she would do tomorrow. “Trust him, he’s your catcher. Let him call the game.”

“And if he makes the wrong calls?” She bit her lip coyly before remembering he couldn’t see her.

“Then you give him hell. Don’t tell me Ginny Baker is afraid to speak her mind now.” He let out a huff of a laugh, and Ginny felt the blush all the way down to her stomach. “Look, pitch around Harper, ignore the scouting report on Rendon,  and try to avoid the off speed stuff for Zimmerman, he won’t chase it. Otherwise, just do what you do best.”

“Which is?”

“Kill em with confidence, Baker,” he chuckled, and she felt herself soothed by his light coaching and even lighter encouragement.

“Thanks, Mike,” she spoke from the heart. “Really, I mean it. That’s a big help. You’re wise in your old age.”

He chuckled again at that, and she could almost hear him shake his head. “Now, now, Baker, it’s just a little coaching. Thought it might be a dream come true to get help from the guy from the posters on your bedroom wall.”

“Oh, I did not have posters of you on my bedroom wall!”

“Okay…” They laughed together, and any anger Ginny had left after the Duarte debacle completely dissipated. She felt, for lack of a better word, comfortable.

“How do you always know how to calm me down?” She asked, and immediately regretted it. That question brought them into dangerous territory, came close to the line they’d built up between them.

He crossed it.

“Well, I sure as hell can’t do it properly from all the way in St. Louis, can I, Rookie? So you’ll have to settle for the next best thing…” She swallowed hard at the words, trying to formulate her response.

“Which is?” She croaked out.

“My baseball expertise, of course, Baker. My second greatest skill,” he teased, and she let out a snort of laughter.

“You are pretty good at...that other thing., too” When did she start sounding like a high schooler? She’d had his dick inside her for Christ’s sake.

“Oh? And what other thing is that, pray tell?”

“Oh, you know, that thing where you hold me down to the mattress and show me who’s boss?” She bit her lip almost hard enough to leave a mark at Mike’s responding silence, wondering if the line that was now barely visible behind them shouldn’t have been crossed after all.

“Ginny…” he finally let out, his voice sounding pained, and she licked her lips before continuing.

“I’m just saying, Mike, four orgasms definitely did the trick when it came to  _ calming me down _ .” She couldn’t believe she was talking like that. Could barely believe the words were coming out of her mouth, really, but they seemed to be working for Mike.

“That was a pretty..strong performance,” he sounded confident, but there was a layer of desperation there that convinced Ginny she wasn’t alone in her insecurity about this moment. “But it was so long ago…”

“It’s been 10 days, Lawson.”

“Still, something’s telling me you need a reminder…” It took her a moment to recognize the offer for what it was. Despite her long distance relationships and road warrior lifestyle, she’d never actually  _ done _ what he was implying. Sure, she’d sent a few selfies to Trevor, maybe a suggestive text or two, but phone sex? Real, actual phone sex with a real, actual human being? That was something new.

_           Oh, God, am I really doing this? _

“Hard to remind me from all the way over there, Mike.”  _ Guess so. _ Her hand slid across the skin of her stomach, under her tank, playing at the waistband of her loose pajama pants as she tried to picture what Mike looked like on the other end of the line.

“What are you wearing, Ginny?” He murmured back, and she had to bite back a laugh at the absurdity of his cliched line.

“Padres shirt, sweats…”

“And underneath?” 

She swallowed hard and let the hand slide down the waistband, dipping underneath just a little. “Nothing.” She spoke honestly, her fingers tracing along the small tuft of hair right above her slit. She closed her eyes and saw his body over hers. Pictured him guiding her legs open for easier access.

“Fuck, Gin…” He’d never actually called her that before, usually sticking to ‘Baker’ or ‘Rookie’ or the occasional ‘Ginny’. The sound of the nickname hit her straight in the stomach, and she willed herself to continue.

“What do you want me to do?” Her hand moved of its own volition, sliding down along her opening and up to settle on her clit, not yet rubbing, but just pressing downward. It was so much, but not enough, and her body craved the sound of his voice.

“Want you to do what I would do, Baker. Want you to move that hand down to where you want it…” She followed his instructions, letting her middle finger play at the opening. Her body felt cold and on fire all at once, desperate and shaky, and she wondered if he could tell how he was affecting her through their connection on the phone.

“I’m really wet…” Ginny let out uselessly, the finger slowly sliding inside.

It apparently worked for Mike, who growled positive reinforcement and let out the telltale sounds of shifting his position. “God, I loved how wet you got, you know that? You were so fucking responsive, Ginny, it was amazing…”

“You made me that way,” she panted, her finger twisting now to reach as far as possible before she added her index along with it. “I got a little desperate for you.”

“Feeling desperate now too, aren’t you? Those fingers inside your pussy? Wishing it was my cock.” The words turned dirty fast, and Ginny had to shift her  _ own _ position so she could keep up with the way her body responded to his voice.

“Mike…” It was useless, but she was past coherent sentences, past anything but the feeling of her hand working against her. The spiral to the edge took her by surprise, and she struggled to hold onto the phone, but needed to hear what he had to say.

“Getting close, baby?”  _ Baby?  _ An involuntary clench seized her cunt, and she focused on the sounds coming from the other end of the line. The  _ fap fap fap _ of hand against cock, only more turned on by the realization that he was doing it thinking of her.

“Yeah…” She breathed out, forced and heady. “Are you?”

The groan she earned was more than enough to send her body into phase 3, her explosion starting in her toes and spreading up her body.

“Yeah, Ginny, come with me…” And that was all she needed to hear. Her vision whited, her body shook, and she felt the almost painful curl of her toes as the orgasm overtook her body, trembling across her skin with a burst of color. She’d never made herself come like that. Especially not from just two fingers inside. She felt overwhelmed. She felt transformed.

When Ginny finally came back to herself, she assumed he had undergone a transformation of his own, if the pants on the other end of the line were any indication. It was a long moment before either of them spoke again, and Ginny uncharacteristically broke the silence.

“Wow.”

Ok, so it wasn’t Shakespeare, but it earned a breathy agreement from Mike. “You can say that again. What a way to celebrate a win.”

She blushed once more, the words only solidifying exactly  _ who _ she’d been doing this with. Thoughts of a code and jeering teammates flashed through her brain, but she willed them away. She could worry about that later. No taking it back now.

          ***

Mike stopped calling the day after the Padres swept the Mets. All of a sudden, Ginny’s line, which had been ringing nightly, went cold. She cycled through all the things that she might have done wrong. Had she forgotten some advice he’d offered for her start? Had she said something in the postgame about holding off the Dodgers? Had she been so bad at phone sex that she freaked him out?

The last one seemed unlikely, but she couldn’t think of any other reasons why Mike would suddenly stop calling. She tried to dial him a few times, even left a message or two, but after a few days of radio silence, she had to face the fact that this might be her new reality.

Luckily, she didn’t have much time to dwell on the fact that Mike wasn’t calling. She had Nike execs to meet with, teammates to convince they weren’t getting traded, and Amelia making things worse for her with upper management (but what else was new?). With the trade deadline rapidly approaching, she spent more and more time camped out on the Sanders’ couch, serving as armchair therapist to Blip’s ever-growing list of concerns.

“What if they send me to the AL?”

“They won’t.”

“What if they replace me with Bryce Harper?”

“They couldn’t afford him.”

“What if I leave and you guys win a ring without me?”

“Lucky for you, that’s categorically impossible.”

The questions didn’t cease, and neither did the worry she felt at the idea of losing her only real friends in town. She made an ill-advised trip to Oscar’s office, and a more fitting one to Al, asking for help dealing with the reality of watching her guys leave the clubhouse.

“You wish them well and promise to stay in touch, Baker, like you would at any job,” he’d told her in his wise, fatherly way. “And then you welcome the new guys to the team and try to get used to working with a new battery mate. What choice do you have?”

_ New battery mate _ . That was strangely specific. But she didn’t think much of it until she made her way back into the clubhouse and saw an empty cubby where Norris’s big worn sweatshirt and beard brush used to be.

_           Holy shit. They traded my catcher. _

“He left about an hour ago, Gin.” She turned her head to see Blip approach, settling his hand on her shoulder. “He was part of a three way trade with the Cubs and Dodgers.”

“But...the Cubs have David Ross, don’t they? And I thought they weren’t ready to make Duarte the full time starter....” She furrowed her brow in a mix of confusion and solid heartbreak at realizing Derek was gone for good. “Who’s taking his place?”

“That would be me.”

Ginny recognized the voice before she saw the face, her stomach clenching and heart seizing as she turned her entire body to look in the direction of the sound. Standing in the clubhouse entrance, backpack slung over his shoulder, was a leather-jacket clad, bearded Mike Lawson. And he was looking _ anywhere _ but at Ginny.

_           Oh, shit _ .


	6. Party

Ginny could count on one hand the number of times in her life she'd been truly  _ shocked _ . When the Padres scout showed up at the State Championships. When Will told her he would be stepping aside to let Amelia take over. When Amelia told her the Padres were calling her up to the big time.

But she knew now that she better add another finger to that count. Because the sight of Mike Lawson in the Padres clubhouse, ready to play for the team she'd started to call home, evoked more shock in her than she could remember in her last 23 years of life.

She remained frozen in position, wondering for a second if maybe she could blend into the background, like Mike wasn't 100% aware of her presence and her spot on this team.

_ So, that's why he hasn't been calling... _

It took Al approaching their new teammate to break Ginny from her reverie, and she welcomed the opportunity to focus her attention on him as he clapped Mike Lawson on the shoulder. "Alright, boys, listen up," he nodded in her direction, "and Baker." She smiled, her usual reaction to Al's attention, hoping it didn't appear as false and stilted as it felt. "I'm sure you've noticed that Norris isn't with us anymore. He's moved on to the Cubs, and in return, courtesy of some sort of baseball sorcery, we get Mr. Lawson here. Now, I know he's new, but he has plenty of experience competing for the playoffs, so I hope you'll all take his expertise to heart." Ginny thought she saw Al's eyes flit to Livan on that last comment, but she'd have to think about that later. For now, all her energy focused on keeping her cool.

"Now, Baker." She looked up with a start as Al addressed her. 

_           Stay calm, Ginny. _

"Mike's gonna get the start for us tonight. I know it's not a perfect situation, pairing you with a brand new catcher, but I'm sure the two of you can get to know each other a little better in the next few hours. God knows he has experience with the Brewers..." Mike and Al laughed together, and Ginny forced herself to join in, despite the fact that her heart rose to her throat.

_ Right. Baseball. You can do baseball. _

Al escaped to his office, leaving the team eying Mike warily. Ginny knew she should be the first to approach, but she couldn't quite get her legs to move. Blip gave her a bewildered look before shaking his head and doing it for her, walking up to their new teammate like the great captain he was.

"Hey, man, Blip Sanders." They shook hands. Ginny took mental notes from the exchange on how to be normal.

"Mike Lawson, good to meet you. Watched you against the Mets last week, you have some great field sense." Ginny hoped her face stayed neutral at that. The reason Mike was watching the Mets game had been because of her, after all. Though she resisted the urge to point that out.

"Thanks, man, means a lot coming from you," Blip looked around the clubhouse, furrowed brows landing a moment longer than was necessary on his rookie pitcher. "It's good to have you around. We can definitely use that bat of yours."

Mike grinned and nodded. "Well, I'm happy to help where I can. Though I should probably start with my pitcher for tonight," he tilted his chin and an inscrutable look in Ginny's direction, and she tried to tamp down the internal excitement that rose from the words 'my pitcher'. This was going to be trouble.

"Yeah," she finally croaked out, breaking out of her frozen state to approach the pair. "We should go over hitters. Training room, ok? Gotta ice my shoulder..." There. Business mode. Mike's expression seemed to war between acceptance and amusement as he dropped his bag in Norris's empty locker and gestured at Ginny.

"Sounds good to me, Baker, lead the way."

"So, you guys played the Brewers last month, didn't you?" She let her voice ring out loud enough for the team to hear, continuing the conversation until the door of the trainer's room slammed shut behind them.

They were finally alone.

Ginny's head whipped around to face him, allowing the surprise and annoyance finally make its way into her expression. "OK, seriously, Lawson, what the  _ FUCK _ ?"

"I know, I know, I should have told you."

"You're damn well right you should have told me," she hissed out, the walls and windows dangerously thin for this kind of conversation. "Is this why you haven't been calling?"

"Not...exactly?" He sighed and put his palms on the trainer's table. "Okay, yes, I found out last week it was a possibility. I would have said no, but I don't have a no trade clause, Ginny. I didn't have a choice in this."

"Why you?" she furrowed her brow. "Derek was here. He was doing a good job." Well, until Livan showed up, but she kept that part inside.

Mike shrugged and went to grab a roll of athletic tape from the counter. "Norris is 27-years-old. Your GM-"

"Oscar," she supplied.

" _ Oscar _ said they wanted someone who can teach Duarte the ropes. Show him how to keep things balanced," he turned to look at her again. "I guess a guy with 16 years of experience was more enticing to them."

"And you?"

He furrowed his brow as he opened the tape. "What about me?"

"Do you want to be here? I know you don't have a choice, but..." She trailed off, moving to lean back against the exam table, trying to sort this new reality in her brain.

Mike shrugged, unrolling part of the tape around his wrist. "You guys have a better chance of playing into October than we do," he corrected himself immediately. "Than the Dodgers do. You've got more talent, a better manager," he brought his head up to look at her. "Why wouldn't I want to be here?"

The unspoken response crackled between them, the truth of what this would mean. They were teammates now. Anything that might have been going on,  _ or not going on _ , certainly wasn't now. Ginny might have broken her code for an opponent, but there was no chance she would be breaking it for someone she had to see every day in the clubhouse. No way would she risk team chemistry or awkward on field performances for a little fun. She looked at the ground, her head spinning, trying to make sense of how to deal with this.

"It wasn't just because of Duarte," Mike offered after a moment, and she raised her eyes in confusion. "The Padres also have a rookie pitcher who's more famous than God right now that they have a lot invested in. Oscar thought a catcher with experience might help her out a little bit."

She rolled her eyes at that, a wash of shame and flattery overtaking her body in a confusing mesh of emotion. "You were already helping me out," the anger was gone from her voice now. She was too tired to keep it up. This wasn’t Mike’s fault; this wasn’t anyone’s fault. This was just her life now.

Mike came up beside her, leaning on the table and knocking his shoulder against hers. "Well they don't know that, now do they?"

"Probably for the best," she murmured, the words coming out softer and flirtier than she intended. She met his eyes, trying and failing to read his expression. "This probably goes without saying, but we can't..." She trailed off, unsure of how to complete that sentence.

"Relax," he soothed. "I'm not going to say anything." Pause. "Or do anything. We're teammates now, Rookie. Blank slate."

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth and nodded, repeating, "Blank slate," before finally reaching for the ice from the freezer next to the table and bringing it up rest on her shoulder.

Mike furrowed his brow once again before gesturing to it. "You alright there? You didn't mention..."

"Blank slate, remember?" She snapped teasingly in return and pushed up to sit on the table. "Now, hitters. I think we should start with a fastball to Villar."

It took Mike about 10 seconds to break out of whatever was happening behind his eyes and push over to the table across from her, retrieving the notes he had in his back pocket. "Oh, man, you do need me, don't you, Baker? Here's why that's a bad idea..."

And as they battled through the hitters, his fingers pounding incessantly against the paper, Ginny wondered for a moment if they might really be okay.

***

All the confusion Ginny felt as a result of Mike joining the team was only amplified by their first performance as battery mates.

They won. They won big, 7-3, and solidified a 5-game lead over the Dodgers in the wild card. It hadn't been a perfect performance. Ginny gave up a couple home runs - one to Hernan Perez and another to Chris Carter - and she'd recorded a stupid error on a bouncer back to the mound. But all in all, the team was happy, the fans were happy, the management was happy...and what more could she ask for?

However, it wasn't the result that shook Ginny so deeply. No, that came from the experience of pitching to her childhood idol/friend/occasional bed partner. The feeling she got when pitching to Mike Lawson was one she'd only felt once before, back in Little League. The battery chemistry crackled between them over 60 feet, 6 inches. She knew what he was going to call before he threw down the sign. He seemed to know when she would shake him off, and had a second sign ready to go immediately. When she was low, his glove was there to stop it. When she was high, he moved seamlessly upward in the split second after a batter swung. It was a beautiful dance of pitch, catch, pitch, catch, and when Ginny left the field in the 7th inning, she could feel her body still thrumming from it.

The feeling remained as the team bounded into the clubhouse, celebrating the win with whoops and hollers, slapping Ginny on the ass, and back, and shoulder, anything to show her how happy they were with her performance. And she was thrilled to celebrate along with them, even dragging Blip in with a grateful hug for his three-run homer in the 5th.

But her real focus was elsewhere, furtive glances stolen at the bearded catcher sitting in his cubby. He'd slapped high fives and traded 'good jobs' with the team, but it was clear he still felt removed from this moment. He'd been on the team for a whole of 10 hours, so Ginny couldn't blame him for the subdued reaction, but she wanted to thank him for what he'd done for them today. For her.

Saddling up beside him at the locker, she nudged his shoulder with her hip, cocking a brow downward. "You all right, Old Man? That felt good out there."

He rewarded her with a wide, comfortable smile that Ginny felt in her stomach before willing it away. "Yeah, it sure did, Rook. Though you could serve to trust me a little more. You called me off 5 times in the 6th inning alone."

She rolled her eyes and nudged him again. "Well, it'll come, right?"

"Sure," he teased and stood to grab a towel from a hook. Ginny felt a surge of pride at only picturing him in the shower for 5 seconds before shaking it off.

"So, hey, listen," she bit her lip. "There's this thing on Thursday in LA, during the off day. I have a Nike commercial coming out and they want to throw a party in my honor. Would you...maybe...want to come?" That high school feeling washed over her once again. She had no talent for asking Mike Lawson a favor.

"A party, huh?" He cocked his brow and slung the towel over his shoulder.

"Yeah, food, open bar, celebrities..." The wait for his response was oddly uncomfortable, considering it shouldn't matter to her if he came or not. She hoped the  _ not a date  _ went unspoken, but Mike didn’t seem confused.

"And you want me there?"

She shrugged. "Well, it would be good for my brand to be seen with a future Hall of Famer," she teased, and he huffed out a responding laugh. "Yeah, Mike, it would be great to have a friendly face there. You want to come?"

He paused a second before nodding and heading to the showers. "Yeah, alright, Baker. But only cuz I clean up great, and I wouldn't want to deprive you of your poster boy in a suit."

"You're not my..." He was gone before she finished the sentence, and she rolled her eyes once again before heading to her own shower.

***

“You  _ slept _ with Mike Lawson?!” The mascara wand slid straight into her eyeball with Evelyn’s screech, and Ginny jerked back, admonishing herself for her timing.

“Yes. And unless you want everyone in this  _ hotel _ to know that, maybe keep the volume at 5 or below?”

"Sorry, sorry. It's just, I mean...when did this happen?" Evelyn couldn't contain her glee as she leaned back in to finish Ginny's makeup.

"After the All-Star Game? I went to thank him for all the nice things he said about me, one thing led to another..." She left out the part where she went to his door with a purpose that night. She also left out the part where he had tried to give her an out, and she just wasn't having it. One thing didn't 'lead to another'. She’d been a woman on a mission.

"Ooooh, so it was really thanks to me then." Ginny furrowed her brow, trying to think how that could possibly be the case, before she remembered that Evelyn had been the one to send her the video that night like the crazy instigator she was.

Ginny rolled her eyes, earning another poke with the mascara. "Ow! Yes, I suppose so, oh meddling one.”

"So?" Evelyn gave her a near predatory grin and Ginny shook her head in exasperation.

"So...what?"

"I want details, Ginny! How was it? Does the carpet match the face?" She waved a hand in front of her mouth, and Ginny tried to find something to throw at her, settling for a blotting pad in her lap.

"I already regret bringing this up," she sighed, and leaned back into her chair. "Fine, it was good, alright? More than good..." She got a little wistful as she remembered back to Mike's hot, warm breath sliding down her body, and settling right where she needed it. Evelyn squealed again at her expression, forcing Ginny back to reality. "But it's over now, okay? He's my teammate. Could you imagine what the press would say? What your  _ husband _ would think if he found out?"

Evelyn clucked her tongue, let out a sigh of her own, and leaned forward to give mascara another try. "It's really a shame. Any man who puts that look on your face deserves at least a round two."

"Well he won't be getting one," Ginny looked up at her and the mascara stabbed her eye once again. "Ow! I can't believe I told Amelia you're as good as a professional makeup artist. You've literally poked me in the eye every time."

"Well maybe if you'd stop with the sexual revelations I could control myself. Putting it away." They laughed together as Amelia knocked on the door.

Ginny held a finger up at Evelyn. "Not a word to her about this."

"Yeah, yeah..."

Amelia entered with a garment bag and a wide grin, dressed in some sparkly pink number that Ginny was sure cost more than her mother's mortgage. "I had to pull strings, twist arms, and threaten lives, but someone was eventually generous enough to entrust you with this $10,000 loan."

Evelyn squealed, a sound that was quick becoming her default setting, and Ginny couldn’t help her curiosity. What could a dress possibly do that made it worth $10,000? Was it going to turn her into a superhero?

She had to admit, she was underwhelmed when Amelia unzipped the bag, but laughed as Evelyn placed a death grip on her arm and gushed over the flowing red fabric, the low cut neckline, and the stretch that would hug what curves her athletic body had. Amelia's face fell at her lack of excitement, so Ginny leaned forward to pull her in for a hug.

"Thank you, Amelia. Seriously. For everything."

"Just doing my job," her agent replied, but Ginny could tell she was touched by the sentiment, and she ushered her into the bedroom to fit her into the overpriced, skin tight garment.

***

She may not have understood what was so special about the dress in her hotel room, but when Mike Lawson arrived on the red carpet, it finally clicked. His eyes almost bugged out of his head as he watched her snapping pictures for the media, and she could swear she saw him freeze at just the sight. He didn't look so bad himself, all dark suit fabric and slicked back hair, and Ginny would maybe have winked at him if there weren't so many cameras capturing this moment.

All the same, she felt a surge of something she wasn’t supposed to feel as she took in his reaction. A happy buzz spread through her insides and out on her skin at the way his eyes drank her in. This feeling went against every rule, but it was hard to help herself when Mike didn’t cooperate.

"Can we get a few of you together?" Mike's assistant knew what she was doing, trying to pose him with his new teammates, get him on the San Diego scene by making him  _ be _ seen with the biggest name in baseball. Ginny nodded her agreement, and swallowed a teasing smile when he approached.

"You...look really nice," he let out dumbly, clear nerves radiating from his body.

"And here I thought I was the one who was supposed to be dumbstruck by, what was it again? My poster boy in a suit?” She kept her face trained forward, but she could tell he heard her by the way his hand tightened on her waist.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t realize you were going full supermodel tonight, Gin, how’s a man to contain himself?” He leaned in for one last whisper, quiet enough now that no one could overhear him. “Though I think I prefered the lycra.” And he winked once before letting her go, leaving her cheeks hot and her breath in her throat as she approached Blip and Evelyn.

“What did he say?” Evelyn squealed, and Ginny shot her a death glare before flicking her eyes toward Blip.

“What did who say?” He looked between them, and his wife just grinned her gleeful grin “Oh, nobody…” she waved him away. “Hey, so how about this party, huh? The ads look great…”

A waitress approached them in just the nick of time, and Ginny made a quick fool of herself by offering to pose with her for a picture before she asked their drink order.

“Surprise me,” was all she could think of to say before the woman disappeared, and Blip and Evelyn whisked her away into the party.

***

_ Smile, but not too long. Pose for a picture, but not too many. Play nice with the Nike brass _ .

The list of things only grew longer as she weaved her way through the party, finding a sea of unfamiliar faces that made the tension in her chest squeeze a little tighter. She was out of her comfort zone, her own face glaring down at her from all around the room, and she clenched her fists to try and stop the panic from rising in her throat.

Her eyes flitted around the room, searching for anyone who could calm her down. Evelyn was deep in conversation with one of the Nike execs, Blip was engaging fans in conversation, Elliott was hitting on Mike’s assistant…

A wave of relief floated over her as she finally caught sight of Amelia, unclenching her fists as she made a beeline for the bar. But she froze when she saw the flirty, half smile stretched across her agent’s face. A flirty, half smile that was focused on someone Ginny had directed her own flirty, half smile at in the past.

Mike Lawson stood with his elbow on the bar, hand running through his beard with that  _ look _ in his eyes. The look that Deadspin had once described as ‘Lawson’s target acquired face’. Mike Lawson was  _ hitting on _ her agent. Her agent was  _ flirting _ with Mike Lawson. Mike Lawson who had seen her naked not two weeks earlier.

Bile rose in her throat, the tension reemerging ten fold as she tried to find somewhere to escape. Suddenly, her huge face was mocking her, the Nike swoosh teasing at her from all around the room. She needed to get away.

A few quick steps found her ducking behind a cart full of dishes, blessedly avoiding the photographer who tried to call her to his side. She took deep, centering breaths, pressing the heels of her hands against her closed eyes.

Somewhere deep down, Ginny knew this was her fault. She had all but told Mike to move on. She had told him she had no interest in continuing things, that this was a bad idea. Hell, she had even told  _ Amelia _ that she needed to focus on her own life more. So what gave her the right to be freaking out over this? What gave her the right to let tears prick at her eyes? What gave her the right to be possessive?

“Um…” Ginny’s eyes snapped open to see the waitress standing in front of her, a fancy, opaque liquid contained in a glass on a tray. “Your drink?”

Ginny didn’t wait for an explanation, covering up her watery eyes by grabbing the drink and sucking it down in three big gulps. The waitress looked almost impressed, and maybe a little worried as she accepted the empty glass.

“I’d ask if you’re ok,” she nodded down at the glass. “But you’re clearly not. Wanna...talk about it?”

Ginny  _ didn’t _ want to talk about it. And yet, she couldn’t help herself. “Well, where to start? My own face is 60 feet wide, my best friends are too busy trying to get an ad campaign of their own to worry about me, and my gorgeous, blonde agent is being hit on by the only guy I’ve been attracted to in the past 5 years. So, yeah, I’m great…” Ginny’s eyes went wide as she realized how much she’d let out to a complete stranger. A complete stranger with kind eyes, but a stranger all the same. “Oh...wow, yeah, I  _ shouldn’t _ have told you that. I don’t even know you.”

The waitress laughed her off with a head shake and stuck out her hand. “Well, I’m Cara…” They shook hands, and Ginny gave a brief introduction of her own.  “Do you want to get out of here?”

“I couldn’t, there’s no way…” Ginny let out a soft laugh at the absurd suggestion, but Cara wasn’t kidding. She was really ready to take off at just a moment’s notice. And wouldn’t that be nice? Just, hopping in the elevator and driving far away from here. Away from the posters and expectations. Away from Mike Fucking Lawson and his disgusting, irresistible beard. Hell, why  _ couldn’t _ she take off? What exactly was stopping her?

“You got a car?”

***

Cara flew down Sunset with Ginny in the passenger seat, shaking her hair out as her new...friend? Companion?...prattled on about losing her job and why it didn’t matter. Ginny’s head spun with a mix of envy and horror at the idea of just bailing on a paycheck. She felt panicky at leaving the party early, and Nike would  _ still _ be paying her millions of dollars.

Cara came to a natural stopping point and stole a glance at Ginny. “So...you gonna tell me why  _ you _ were ok with bailing on your night to remember?” She narrowed her eyes with a laugh. “Not that I’m judging or anything, you do you, but it  _ was _ your party we just walked out on, right?”

Ginny clucked her tongue and nodded.

“Well, you can tell me to shut up, of course, but I can’t help but wonder what a superstar...pitcher?” Ginny nodded again. “Is doing bailing on her own coming out party.”

Ginny sighed and looked down at her hands. “I don’t want to talk about that…”

“And the guy you’re attracted to?”

“I  _ definitely _ don’t want to talk about that.” She pushed any thoughts of Mike to the back of her brain and turned to look at Cara. “Hey, you can just take me somewhere I can catch an Uber, if you want. I should probably get back to San Diego.”

“No!” Cara whined and pouted her bottom lip in Ginny’s direction. “The night is young, Ginny Baker. We’re just getting started!”

“I should really get back...I just gotta stick to my routine…” She rolled her eyes at her own absurdity. “I know, it probably sounds boring.”

“No, it sounds like  tomorrow’s problem,” Cara corrected with a wide grin. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

***

_ Splash _ .

Ginny felt her long, silk-clad body land in the water, the small basketball crashing on top of her as she sunk into the pool. 

Apparently, what they had been  _ doing _ was crashing a house party in the Valley where Cara vaguely knew the host. Ginny felt overdressed and over made up, but gave in to Cara’s insistence that no one would care.

It turns out, she was right. After a quick flash of recognition from the partygoers, Ginny was enveloped into the crowd and offered a drink. And then another. And then a shot in order to get her on the dance floor.

She had been so careful to keep up her sobriety at the Nike party. Amelia had drilled into her brain all the reasons why she should never be drunk in public, especially at an industry event, and Ginny had taken them to heart. 

But now, anonymously blending in with a crowd of LA scene kids, she finally felt like she could kick back, knock down a few drinks...really let loose. She played video games with the guys, knocked down a couple shots in their intricate beer pong game, balanced on the table, punctuating each achievement with a gleeful "what else you got?"

And that's how she found herself in the back yard, basketball in hand, stealing a pair of sneakers to execute the flying dunk she'd perfected as a 12-year-old in her next door neighbor's pool. She was far gone enough to ignore the cameras swirling around the party, and let her tipsy self give in to the pure fun of letting go.

When she resurfaced, triumphant fists pounding in the air, she remembered, for the first time, that she was still wearing Amelia's $10,000 dress. The $10,000 dress she'd had to "threaten lives for", in her words. The one that Ginny swore she'd take care of.

Oh well, what did Cara call that? Tomorrow's problem...

Instead of worrying, she pushed herself out of the pool and grabbed a waiting towel from Cara, letting her drag Ginny’s soaking wet body back inside to dry off. 10 minutes later, she was clad in a pair of (Jessica? Jennifer?)'s jeans and a worn t-shirt, collapsed in an empty bathtub with a giggling (if not slightly concerned-looking) Cara right beside her.

"So, Ginny Baker," she teased, kicking her lightly, and eliciting a soft laugh. "You left the party because you wanted to let loose, that much is clear. And we did that. So, are you finally going to tell me about this guy that had you in such a funk that you sucked down five drinks to forget about him?"

Cara looked at her with a wise, knowing expression, but Ginny wasn't ready to give in. "I wasn't trying to forget anyone."

"Yeah, okay," Cara snorted in response and threw a towel over to let Ginny start on her hair. "I've known some disciplined people in my life, Ginny. And no one goes balls to the wall like that unless there's something...or someone...they're trying to avoid."

Ginny considered denying it again, but if Cara hadn't known who she was, there was very little chance of her knowing about Mike Lawson. And it would feel good to talk about what happened tonight with someone who wouldn't judge her...

"Okay, fine," she grumbled. "He's my catcher. Well, my new catcher." Cara waggled her eyes at that and Ginny swatted her with the towel. "Not a euphemism. He's actually catching for me now."

"And?"

"And...I slept with him about two weeks ago." She bit her lip and stole a glance over at her bathtub companion, who, much to Ginny's surprise, looked completely nonplused. "Before he was my teammate."

"And?" Cara asked again, to which Ginny shot her an incredulous look. "Well, you're hardly the first person to sleep with a coworker. What's the big deal?"

Ginny laughed and shook her head. "It's not like that. Not with my job. I'm the only woman in that clubhouse. I spend half my life trying to be one of the guys. So getting involved with someone on the team...someone I have to see every day..." She looked down at her hands. "And then today, at the party, I saw him talking to my agent, and I just..." She trailed off, not sure what she even wanted to say.

Cara clucked her tongue, taking in the words. "But you like him. Don't you?" She shot her a sidelong glance, Ginny looking up at her in resigned surprise.

"I don't usually sleep with people I don't like..."

"Yeah, that's not what I meant," Cara clucked again. "You like him. You care about him. You don't want to stop doing this, even if you're supposed to."

The tears welling in her eyes caught Ginny completely by surprise, and she let out a loud, shocked laugh-sob as a few dropped down her cheeks. "Fuck." Was all she let out, her eyes traveling back over to Cara.

"You should tell him," Cara said, her eyes lighting up with a conspiratorial look. Ginny could tell she had a plan.

"I can't do that, Cara. It's a really bad idea." But 5 drinks in, it really didn't seem like such a horrible thing to do. She could catch an Uber down to San Diego, knock on Mike's door, and let him have it for what he put her through tonight. She could chew him out for hitting on her agent, and for making her feel like this (though, that probably wasn't actually his fault). She could maybe make another move. Who would it really hurt?

Cara seemed to catch the plan formulating in Ginny's eyes, biting her lip around a wide smile. "You know, I haven’t been drinking tonight..." She finally revealed, cocking a brow in Ginny's direction. "What's a short drive to San Diego?"


	7. Mess

The ‘short drive to San Diego’ took just under an hour and 45 minutes with Cara’s exceptional California driving skills. Usually, Ginny found herself nervous on long car rides, what with her history, but 5 drinks made her remarkably calm, and covertly sipping an illegal road beer from a solo cup kept her that way for the remainder of the ride.

Cara pulled up in front of the home that Blip had nicknamed “Mike Lawson’s Fishbowl” when they had both toured it on Mike’s second day on the team when he needed help unloading a storage container. 

Ginny had been in San Diego three months, and was still living on room service and hotel linens. Mike had been here a week, and had already taken up residence in a big, palatial estate that overlooked the ocean. Sure, it was a rental from a former Charger who had been traded the year before, but Ginny’d still felt impressed and inadequate as she took in the glass walls and modern fixtures.

“Are you dating a porn director?” Cara’s voice broke her out of the reverie, and Ginny turned to give her a reproving glance.

“I’m not  _ dating _ anyone,” she shook her head and looked back out, wondering, not for the first time that night, if this was a good idea. But Cara had driven her all this way, and if she was here anyway, she might as well knock on the door.

She turned with a grateful smile. “Thanks,” Ginny nodded and leaned in to give Cara a hug, even as she tried to wave off the gratitude. “I mean it, Cara. I really needed tonight, and you didn’t have to do any of that. So thank you...and thanks for the ride.”

“You got it, Ginny Baker.” Cara laughed. “And you have my number, so don’t be afraid to use it next time you’re in town.” Ginny nodded before pushing open the passenger door and stepping out onto the cobblestone driveway, making her way slowly to the front door, barefoot, heels in hand.

A rash of possibilities tore through her mind when she considered what she might find at the entrance. The image of Mike and Amelia flirting flashed past from earlier that night, and she wondered if her agent might be behind that front door. Maybe wearing one of Mike’s sweatshirts (the way Ginny had done that night). Or stealing some of the fancy face wash he had around just for company (Ginny had been surprised to find it in his hotel room). Or teasing him about his beard and decor (which Ginny had proudly done more than once).

But she felt empowered at the lack of a second car, and as she heard Cara pull off into the night, she finally got up the courage to ring the doorbell.

For a long moment, nothing happened. It was two in the morning, after all, maybe he was in bed? As the seconds counted down, Ginny felt her heart in her throat, realizing, for the first time, that he might not answer. And then she would be drunk, in a pair of borrowed jeans, no doubt passing out on Mike Lawson’s front porch.

She had just started considering how to use the leaves of his shrubbery as a pillow when the door creaked open in front of her. There, clad in just a pair of plaid pajama pants, stood Mike. His eyes were red, his body language exhausted, but the shock at seeing Ginny Baker at his front door was enough to spur any man forward.

“Ginny?” He croaked out, and she bit her lip in response.

“Yeah...hi, Old Man…” Her hands clung to her elbows, her body swaying from a wave of drunken nervousness. “I know it’s late.”

“Yeah...it is…” he let out dumbly, his eyes tracing her up and down before settling on her face. “Are you drunk?” Her shrug must have been enough of an answer, and he sighed before stepping aside to let her enter.

Once the door closed behind them, Ginny realized she didn’t have an endgame here. In her drunken state, she hadn’t thought much beyond ‘go to Mike’s house’, and now that she was here, she was at a surprising loss for things to say. Her mind swirled with alcohol and feelings and words she wished she could string together, ultimately narrowing on Mike’s face. He squinted sleepy at her as she struggled to find a comfortable position, and finally sighed again before guiding her into his kitchen.

“Come on, Rookie, I’ll make you some coffee.”

She swayed into the kitchen and fell into a stool at the counter, leaning her head on one hand and biting her lip as she watched him. “That’s a fancy coffee maker.”

He huffed out a laugh as he scooped in grounds. “It’s not. You’re just used to it appearing at your door.” He busied himself filling the water and starting the machine, turning back to her as the coffee steeped. “So are you going to tell me what you’re-”

“Did you sleep with her?”

Mike’s eyebrows shot halfway up his forehead and a look of confusion flitted across his features. “Did I sleep with who?”   


“Amelia,” Ginny slurred out, bringing up a useless finger to point at him. “I saw you two.”

Mike laughed again, but it was the wrong answer. Ginny felt a wave of disgust and anger course through her, and she clenched drunken fists down onto the counter. His expression sobered at that, and his head shook in exasperated frustration. “No. I didn’t sleep with her.”

“You were flirting with her.”

“Yeah, I was. And as soon as she told me she was your agent, I  _ stopped _ flirting with her,” he sighed and turned back to the coffee machine. “I’m not an asshole, Baker, no matter what you might think.” He poured a cup and slid it to the drunken rookie curled up at his breakfast bar.

“Oh.” She sipped at the coffee and struggled for a response, trying to process the information despite the inebriated resistance that had taken hold of her body.

“Yeah, oh.” A pregnant pause stretched between them. Ginny felt her hands overheating from the ceramic cup, but did nothing to stop it.

“So, is that the only reason you came over here?” Mike murmured, leaning forward and placing his elbows down on his own side of the counter. “Cuz I’m barely sober myself, and with the night I’ve had, I'm not sure how much whiplash I can take tonight, Baker."

"Night you've had?" She tried, and he shook his head, almost visibly deciding to let her in.

"Oh, you know, a few too many shots with Blip, a nice trip to my ex-wife's house. Typical off day." An angry sound escaped his mouth before he turned to pour a cup of his own.

"Ex-wife's house?" It was all Ginny could think of to say. This was all too much to process tonight. What was she thinking coming here?

"Does getting drunk turn you into a parrot?" He teased gently, and she finished the coffee, placing the cup down on the counter in front of her. "Amelia seemed to think I was...distracted by something. I thought it was Rachel. And that cheating asshole of a doctor she's marrying. Turns out that wasn’t the case." He cocked a brow at Ginny before swallowing down a gulp of his coffee. "For the record, I'm only telling you all this because I'm fairly certain there's no way you'll remember it in the morning."

"I'll remember," she protested, though she was admittedly unsure. The room had only just stopped spinning, after all.

"Yeah, ok." The second silence was kinder, more comfortable, and Ginny rubbed her hands over her bare arms in a soothing gesture. She wasn't cold, but nothing about this night was what she'd thought it would be.

Mike furrowed his brows at the motion and sipped from his mug. A war of emotions played behind his eyes, and Ginny wanted to ask what he was thinking. She wanted to know why he left Rachel Patrick's house tonight. She wanted to know what Amelia had seen that made her ask that question.

She said none of it, instead staring at him for a moment too long.

"Why did you come here?" He tried again, voice softer and less accusatory this time. She shrugged and tried to come up with a rational answer.

"Because I wanted to." It wasn't a good one. He didn't accept it.

"I’m a fucking mess, Baker," he sighed, coffee drained, leaning toward her but still miles away. "What do you want from me?”

“Nothing, Mike. I don’t want anything from you…” That answer was easy. She bit her lip and let her eyes flit over to the stairs, the handpainted poster of her childhood idol hanging narcissistically in the landing. He followed her gaze, voice steadier when it finally came out.

"Come on, Ginny." He walked around to help her out of the chair and guided her over to walk up the stairs. "You need some sleep."

"With you?" It was another stupid, drunken question. Mike huffed out a laugh and shook his head at her absurdity.

"Relax, Baker, I'm not going to try anything. I like my women a little more...with it..." He gestured to her bloodshot eyes, which struck her as hysterical, peals of laughter coursing through her body and shaking against the hand on her shoulder. He laughed along with her as they entered his bedroom, and as he helped her out of her jeans and into his bed, she couldn't help but think this felt more right than anywhere she'd slept in months.

          ***

When she awoke the next morning, Ginny felt the telltale signs of two very different parts of her evening. First, the dry mouth and pounding headache that came along with a night of drinking and diving into strangers' pools. Second, the stiff insistence of a morning hard on that came with falling asleep in Mike Lawson's arms.

She tried to remember exactly how she got there, the night and the stilted conversation flooding her brain at the sight of a stranger's t-shirt wrapped around her torso. With that gaze, she also caught sight of Mike's hand palming at her stomach, and wondered for a second if she could escape his embrace without waking him. She needed to leave. She needed to call Amelia, make sure her absence from the Nike party hadn't ruined everything. She needed to find the $10,000 dress she'd left hanging on a stranger's pool deck. She needed to  _ leave _ .

But Mike's arms and monster dick had other plans, curling up a little more emphatically and holding her into place.

She could feel the moment that Mike came to consciousness. His limbs went rigid, his neck slowly moving so his head could look down at her. She let her own roll backwards to meet his gaze, a silent challenge in her expression. "Morning, Old Man," she bit her lip and squeezed at the hand on her stomach ( _ when had her palm covered his, exactly? _ ).

The confused, concerned expression that had overtaken his face softened into a quiet, almost happy acceptance, and his grip tightened around the middle of her body. "How'd you sleep, Rook?" He murmured, his hand moving back just slightly to stroke along her side and settle on her hip. Ginny shivered as his fingers reached bare skin, covered only by the thin string of her panties.

"Like a dumb 23-year-old who had way too much to drink," she teased back, noticing for a second how his eyes both narrowed and darkened at the word '23'. Goosebumps rose on Ginny’s skin as Mike’s hand continued its descent down over her bare thigh and then back up again to rest on her ribs. Her eyes closed and she let out a soft hum, hips unconsciously pressubg back into his, forcing the spooning even tighter.

"Ginny..." His voice took on a warning tone that didn't match the movements of his body, bearded chin rolling forward to rub against her shoulder and lips sliding against the crease of her neck.

Ginny knew this was against every rule they'd set for themselves. She knew this was dangerous, reckless, that just touching Mike like this was going to send them right back to square one. She knew that she should push back, go brush her teeth, and cook him breakfast as a thank you. She knew she should go deal with what was sure to be a very frustrated Amelia.

But then his hand slid underneath the fabric of her t-shirt, brushed against her abs, and his hard cock actually grew another inch or two, and Ginny figured this was a much better way to thank him.

Resolved, she moved with more purpose now, reaching down to grab his hand and guide it up her shirt to where her bare breasts tilted sideways into the mattress. Part of her expected reticence on his part, possibly a protest. She didn't get it. Instead, that big palm ghosted across her before a thumb pressed against a nipple, tweaking at it with the index before soothing.

She let out a soft, pleased sound at that, the moment of pain turned into pleasure, and he apparently took that as an invitation to do it again, pinching her nipple hard enough this time to turn the sound into a real moan. His lips smiled against her neck and he kept his hand working, hips guiding forward against hers as he lazily played with her body. He discovered parts that made her shake - like light pressure underneath her breast, that spot on her side that was always a little too ticklish, the defined hardness of her abdomen.

Ginny tried to get him to go faster, to stop teasing her. She could feel the wetness pooling between her legs, and reached back to anchor a hand on his hip to try and urge him forward. But Mike was not so easily swayed, and his fingers just played at the elastic of her panties as she turned into a quivering mess beneath him.

"Please..." she finally whimpered out, shifting into a grateful moan when he complied. His hand worked down underneath the fabric to cup her mound, fingers parting wet lips and sliding down to her entrance. Ginny was shaking for a whole new reason now, desperate for his fingers, and he was happy to comply, sliding the middle slowly inside, only working up deeper as her cunt clenched around it.

"God, Mike..." She let out then, the sound of his name on her lips only ramping up the intensity of the moment. He added a second finger, the heel of his hand settling on her clit, and she could feel her body rising to meet his ministrations.

It happened faster than either of them expected, the soft, placating caresses only serving to bring her to the edge that much quicker. She came with her eyes screwed shut, head tilted backwards to moan her orgasm into the skin of his neck, legs clamping down around his wrist and hand. Her soft pants were the only sound in an otherwise still room, and he pulled his fingers out slowly, surely, shifting her panties to her knees so he could slide that big, hard cock between her thighs.

She pressed her legs together to give him a tight space to work with, and was rewarded by a deep groan from above her and precum dripping onto the sheets in front of them. Her eyes flew up to the nightstand, a box of condoms clearly visible from behind the lamp, and tightened the narrow squeeze while simultaneously grabbing for the foil packet.

He was close. She could tell by the moans and the taut skin against hers. This wouldn't last long, but she still wanted it. Needed it. If they were going to cross the line and break the rules, it was damn sure going to be with his cock splitting her apart.

Coming to his senses long enough to extricate himself from between her thighs and slide the rubber down over his cock, Mike molded her hips forward into the bed and slowly pushed into her, the position only making her tighter, his cock impossibly bigger inside her pussy. The position should have really been painful for her. It wasn't.

A soft "fuck" slid out from her lips, and it was on, his body moving back and forth in a slow, deliberate pace, her mouth letting out a string of the dirtiest words she could ever remember saying, in bed or otherwise. The movements were staggered and stuttering, and Ginny reached her hand down to roll down into it, determined to come along with him, even if it had only been a minute or two since her last orgasm.

Mike apparently caught what she was doing, because his hand moved down to join hers, sliding over it and interlocking their fingers so he could guide her touch across her clit. The intimacy combined with his body completely suffocating hers was what ultimately pushed her over the edge, and she could feel him moan and pulse with his own release before they collapsed forward together.

Ginny had no sense of how long she laid there, t-shirt twisted around her neck, body covered by Mike’s heavy weight. All the same, she let out a noise of protest when he finally pulled away to discard of the condom, rolling on her back and staring up at the ceiling.

_           Well, that happened again. _

She let her eyes follow Mike across the room, staring unabashed at the broad muscles of his shoulders, his defined lower back, his high, tight ass.  _ He’s perfect _ , her subconscious supplied, and Ginny felt too sated and sleepy to will it down this time. He was perfect. He was everything she’d ever wanted.

But you can’t always get what you want.

By the time Mike returned, Ginny sat curled up against the headboard, panties back in place, her knees pulled against her chest. He sat far from her, not close enough to touch, and she knew that he knew that this had been a mistake.

“Mike…” She tried, her voice surprisingly hoarse. She cleared her throat before continuing. “I should probably…” There was no point in talking about what just happened. They’d broken her code. Again. They’d broken the one rule they’d set just four days earlier.  _ This _ wasn’t supposed to happen. And it couldn’t happen again.

He nodded, a silent acceptance behind his expression, and stood to go grab his clothes and retrieve her jeans from the foot of the bed. “Come on. It’s late, I’ll drive you to the park.” Her eyes flitted over to the neon green of his alarm clock. It wasn’t actually late. It was 7:00, plenty of time to get to the park on time. But they both needed the out.

“I should call Amelia…” She murmured, standing to pull on the jeans. “She’s probably freaking out from my little escape last night.”

“I told her you were fine.” He was dressed now, changing into a game day button down, jeans, and his worn leather jacket miraculously quickly.

Ginny’s brows knit together. “You did? When?”

“Last night, after you fell asleep,” he shrugged, before supplying her with information she shouldn’t care about, but couldn’t help herself. “I got her number from your phone. She was still up.”

Ginny nodded her acceptance, sucking her bottom lip again before going to retrieve her shoes from the kitchen, cursing as she saw the heels.

“Here.” Mike came up behind her, pressing a pair of his large Nike sandals into her hand. “Let’s get going, I’ll pick you up a muffin on the way.”

“Blueberry?” She bit her lip and he let out a soft huff of a laugh.

“Sure, Baker, whatever you want.”


	8. Three Months

Amelia was waiting in the Padres parking lot when Mike pulled into his designated parking spot, Elliot trailing behind her. They had stopped off at the Omni to let Ginny change and grab her stuff, so she at least looked presentable as she pushed out of the passenger door and went to meet her agent.

“I’m gonna…” Mike gestured between Amelia and the ballpark before setting off in the direction of the clubhouse. Probably for the best. This was going to be hard enough as it was.

Amelia handed her a cup of coffee when she approached, and Ginny wondered if maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. And then she saw her agent’s stern, almost forlorn face, and she knew it would be worse. Amelia’s eyes trailed to watch Mike’s retreating body, suspicion radiating from her, and Ginny felt like she had to say something.

“How bad is it?” She croaked out, squeezing the Starbucks cup in her hand.

“I’ve seen the video of your skills contest dunk. Actually, everyone’s seen the video…” Ginny looked down at her feet, swallowing hard. “The good news is that people love it. The bad news is that you were wearing New Balance sneakers.” An image of stealing shoes off a stranger’s feet flashed through her mind, and Ginny cursed herself for not even thinking to look at the brand.

“This is a disaster,” she breathed out, and zoned slightly as Amelia outlined how they were going to deal with this, with Nike gift bags for veterans, a move Ginny would have been happy to pull any day of the week.

“Amelia, thank you…” she said when they came to a natural stopping point. “For this, for everything you do.”

“Well, don’t thank me yet…” Ginny’s eyes narrowed in confusion, and she looked back at Elliot, who refused to meet her gaze. “Because now I’m going to ask you what the  _ hell _ is going on with you and Mike Lawson.”

The flush spread across her chest and up to her cheeks, her vision actually flashing red for a second as she tried to figure out how to answer the question. If Amelia had asked the day before, she could have conjured up a response. But now, with a fresh hickey still forming right below her collar, she couldn’t think of a realistic way to brush off what sounded like an accusation.

Amelia’s eyes only became narrower when she didn’t answer. “Ginny…”

“It’s nothing, Amelia,” she lied, shaking her head. “Seriously, we’re teammates.”

“Teammates? Because you invited him to that party...and he got squirmy as soon as I told him who I work for…” Mike Lawson? Squirmy? That she would pay to see. “Look, your personal life is your business, but I need to know what I’m dealing with here, because-”

“Nothing,” Ginny interrupted her, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. “There’s nothing to deal with, Amelia, he just helped me out a few times is all.”  _ In more ways than one. _ “Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when there’s something you need to cover up.”

Amelia stared for another long moment before nodding, apparently accepting Ginny’s bold-faced lie of an answer. “I’ll get the duffel bags together,” she stepped aside to let Ginny pass. “No more cell phone videos for a while, ok?”

She smiled gratefully before walking toward the stadium. “I promise.”

          ***

She barely passed the door of the clubhouse when Mike shot up from his seat on the bench and leaned through the doorway to meet her. “Everything ok?”

Ginny swallowed her smile at the realization he’d been waiting for her, nodding and readjusting her backpack. “Mmmhmm. I had the wrong shoes on for that dunk so we had to talk damage control.” She shrugged and looked over her shoulder toward her private locker. “I should probably go…”

“We should talk about last night…” Their voices rang out simultaneously and Ginny’s head whipped around to search for eavesdroppers.

“Not here we shouldn’t.” She hissed out and grabbed Mike’s arm, dragging him back into her cubby and shutting the door behind him. An amused smile stretched on his face as he crossed his arms in front of him. “What?” she asked at the expression.

“Was all  _ that _ really necessary?” He gestured with his hand. “No one gets here this early but you.”

Her mouth opened and closed, no retort coming, and settled for a grumbling, “I don’t think we should talk about it.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re  _ teammates _ , Mike. At least until the end of this year. And as long as we’re  _ teammates _ , that’s how it’s gonna be.”

The amused look was back. Ginny hated that look.

“Are you shaking me off, Baker?” She couldn’t help but swallow a smile at the comparison.

“I make the calls here, Lawson. It’s up to me what  _ I  _ talk about. And  _ I  _ don’t think we should talk about this. At all.” She crossed her arms in a show of defiance, cocking a daring brow up at him.

Mike stayed silent for a long moment, the nods of his head the only suggestion that he was taking in her words at all. When he finally spoke, she had to strain to hear it. “How about we give it two months?”

Ginny furrowed her brow in confusion. “Two months?”

“Yeah, a compromise. Two months. Three if we make the playoffs,” his eyes searched her face. “We’ll be teammates. Real, supportive teammates, and then we can talk about this. In three months.”

She smiled at the implication behind his changed timeline. “Three months. To talk?”

“To talk,” he agreed with a nod. “Nothing more, just talk about what it all means.” She swallowed another smile and put out her hand to shake on it.

“Three months.” He shook her hand with a laugh before winking. “Now come on, Baker, thought I was finally going to get to see what you can do in the gym.” Her responding laugh echoed as he closed the door behind him.

          ***

Mike’s ‘three months’ correction turned out to be a premonition of sorts for the Padres, because from the time they shook on their little deal, the team started playing like they had something to prove.

The gap between them and the rest of the National League only widened, and they sat solidly in line for the Wild Card. As the calendar turned to September, there was some hope they’d be able to catch San Francisco and actually win the NL West, but the even-year Giants were playing out of their  _ minds _ late in the season, so they would have to settle for a spot in the NL Wild Card Game.

It went unspoken, but most of their teammates credited Mike for the team’s unprecedented success. Since his arrival, all five pitchers had developed a comfort level on the mound that had never been there with Norris or Livan behind the plate. None more so than Ginny Baker, whose terrible early season ERA had rebounded to a respectable 2.45, along with a WHIP that rivaled any pitcher in the league.

Duarte had started to settle as well. Despite a few moments of “playing the hero” when Mike first arrived, a series of sit downs with the 16-year veteran was all he needed to fall in line. He still sat in the backup spot on the depth chart, but got plenty of starting opportunities with Mike’s aging knees, looking more and more like a team player with every single at bat.

Blip was still the captain, there was no questioning that, but he had found a comrade in Mike. Someone who could help him keep the team in line, and counsel him when he needed advice. Not to mention someone who would let him come over for ‘boys night’ once a week to play a few rounds on a truly impressive pool table.

          ***

Which is where Ginny was the night before the Wild Card game, Blip having convinced her to tag along on ‘boys night’ despite all her protestations. (“You’re not even  _ pitching _ tomorrow, Ginny! The least you can do is join us for a celebratory drink!”) And who could say no to that?

She sat at the bar in Mike’s rec room, nursing a beer, trying to pretend like she was following the conversation the boys were having about their recent Fantasy Football draft. All the same, it did feel good to have company. And something about being in the ‘fish bowl’ for boys night suggested to her that she and Mike just might be back to normal. Even if she did flash back to that morning in his bedroom every time she caught a glimpse of the oversized staircase.

“What do you think, Ginny?” She startled from her fantasy, looking up to find both men staring at her with slightly narrowed eyes.

“What do I think about what?”

“The game tomorrow,” Blip gave her a somewhat exasperated look. The pool table was long forgotten, the two men leaning against it now, both nursing beers of their own. “Did you ever think we’d get there?”

“Of course I did,” she shrugged, meeting Blip’s eyes. “What, you mean you didn’t?”

He mimicked her shrug with a laugh. “Nah, I mean, I hoped, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think I really bought in completely until this one came around and started selling out the stadium.” He clinked the bottom of his bottle against Mike’s, earning a smile from the other man.

“Not sure I did much but force you to get your head out of your ass,” Mike teased in response and finished his beer. “Plus, I’m pretty sure you can thank MJ over there for the sold out crowds.” The guys in the clubhouse had started calling her ‘MJ’ after the dunk video surfaced, the nickname an unfortunate consequence of an otherwise memorable evening.

“I don’t think we’re winning because the seats are filled,” Ginny said.

“Well, it sure as hell doesn’t hurt,” Blip grabbed the three empty bottles and brought them over to the counter before replacing them with three full beers. “Now, I don’t quite have the Lawson speech gene, but I’d like to propose a toast. To a great season, with great teammates, and to kicking the Cubbies’ asses tomorrow.”

“To great teammates,” Mike echoed, clinking their bottles and taking a long drink of the beer.

And if his eyes held Ginny’s just a second too long, who was she to look away? At least Blip didn’t seem to notice as he racked the balls for another game.

          ***

‘Kick the Cubbies’ asses’ had been no exaggeration. The Padres cruised through an 8-3 win, spurred forward by a particularly memorable 3-run homer by one Mike Lawson, to punch their ticket to the NLDS against the surging Nationals. Ginny watched the entire game from her regular spot at the top of the bullpen steps, and even earned a celebratory ass slap from her catcher that made her freaking blush on national television.

The surging didn’t stop there. The series with the Nationals was as close to a cake walk as any NLDS had been for the past 10 years. As the number 5 starter, Ginny found herself relegated to the bullpen for the playoffs, the rotation dwindled down to four, but that didn’t stop her from cheering louder than anyone as her team swept their way through the NLDS, silencing the petulant douchebag that was Bryce Harper.

They all knew the free ride would stop when they finally reached the NLCS. The Giants ripped through their own slate of teams with even  _ more _ exuberance than the Padres, so the realization that this would be a  _ series _ for the first time this postseason had already dawned on them as the games approached.

They traded wins like a barter system, the Padres taking one in San Francisco, and then giving it back as soon as they reached home. On and on until they were finally tied at 3 games apiece, and preparing for a winner take all Game 7 at AT&T Park.

          ***

And that’s where Ginny found herself, positioned in her regular spot on the rail, watching Sonny pitch them into a 4-0 deficit in the fourth inning. He needed help, there was no question that the yips had taken him, and the hope of him getting out of another inning unscathed was almost negligible.

Al saddled up beside her on the steps, speaking low to avoid catching the attention of the cameras.

“Baker, we’re in trouble.”

That got  _ her _ attention, at least, and she stole a glance at her manager before returning her gaze to Sonny.

“I can see that, Skip.”

“The bullpen pitched 4 innings yesterday.”

“I know that too.” She narrowed her eyes slightly, wondering what he was getting at.

“They can probably go three today, but I can’t have them pitch from the 5th on.” He took a deep breath and finally looked at her. “Go warm up, Baker. I need you in relief.”

Ginny had never pitched a relief situation in her entire life. Not even in Little League. To do it now, in Game 7, when the team needed a hero to pull them out of a 4-0 deficit seemed like a suicide mission, to say the least. She felt overwhelmed, nervous. The panic rose up in her throat and she wanted to tell him no. She wanted to tell him there was no way she could do this. She wanted to tell him to get Butch in there earlier, or that maybe Sonny could get it together.

But more than all of that...she wanted to get in the game.

She got through her warm up in record time, Livan offering to help her in the cage. When she felt warm enough, he walked over to bump shoulders, winking once with that gorgeous half smile of his. “Relax, Mami. You got this. Just another pitch.”

Just another pitch.

Except it wasn’t just another pitch, was it? It was the biggest moment of her life. It was the moment she could go from being a gimmick to a hero. It was the moment she could solidify her place in Padres history. By the time she reached the mound, her entire body was shaking. She knew she had to focus, but the lights were brighter than she remembered, the crowd louder, the scoreboard bearing down on her in a way it never had before. She licked her lips and let her eyes settle on Mike Lawson.

And the whole world seemed to narrow around her. 

All of a sudden, they were back in that indoor cage, the night after her first start, Mike calling pitches instead of laying down the signs. ‘Fastball.’ ‘Screwgie.’ ‘Curve.’ She could hear the words echoing in her subconscious, and let them play as he threw down a sign for a fastball. She wanted to shake him off, to rely on her bread and butter screwball, but she trusted her catcher. She trusted Mike.

_           Thwack. _

The ball landed solidly in Mike’s mitt. A perfect strike down the middle. She could do this.

The first out came easily, a routine grounder to short. The second was even better, a pure swinging strikeout that brought that familiar thrum back into her body. The third to close out the inning was a popout to shallow center, and a diving catch by Blip Sanders that once again solidified his Golden Glove status. She pumped her fist and ran off the field, bumping shoulders with Mike as she felt the game start to shift in their favor. Maybe they could do this after all.

When she came back out for the 6th, the Padres had pulled it within two runs. All she had to do was get them through another one, and the offense had plenty of time to pull them back into this for real. A leadoff single made the nerves rise up again, but with a quick look from Mike, she tamped them back down and dealt the strikeout she’d been trying to give him the first time around. A 1-2 count to the next batter, their pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, forced Mike to finally call for the screwgie, and she wound up for the fateful pitch she had yet to know would change the course of everything.

Mad Bum laid down a surprising sacrifice bunt. Particularly surprising for a guy that had hit two grand slams just a couple years ago. So surprising, in fact, that Mike didn’t notice it at first, the ball hanging there for a moment too long before Ginny took action.

She could tell something was wrong from the moment the ball left her hand to throw the out at second. A loud  _ pop _ rang in her ears and searing pain radiated from her shoulder, enough to draw her to the ground, clinging to her useless bicep.

It was hard to focus on the flurry of activity around her with the pain she felt in her arm. She could hear voices surrounding her, first the ump, then Mike, then Al, then maybe Blip? She remembered wondering for a second if she’d gotten the double play, before words and phrases started floating into her consciousness.

Mike’s “Hang on. Hang on, baby, I got you,” was the last thing she remembered hearing  before the paramedics took over. 


	9. Okay

The team doctors had Ginny on a morphine drip before she even reached the hospital, and while grateful for the pain relief, she couldn’t help but feel a wave of concern before passing out on the gurney. Flashes of the hospital swam through her consciousness, suggesting she wasn’t  _ completely  _ out for the entire trip, but when she truly came to again it was morning, the sun shining outside her window.

Ginny shifted to an upright position, forgetting herself for a moment as a shooting pain traveled up her arm and into her shoulder blade. She overcorrected by jolting to the left, and almost fell off the bed in the process, large hands coming up to stabilize her left side.

“Careful…” the voice attached to the hands said. “The team isn’t insured for another clumsy Ginny Baker moment.”

She turned her head, somehow not completely surprised to see Mike Lawson standing at her bedside, hands pressed tightly to her remaining, working arm. She wanted to admonish him for being there. She wanted to point out the implications of his presence. She wanted to tell him that this would only make this worse.

But she was just… so tired.

When he was confident she wouldn’t be rolling out of bed anytime soon, Mike settled back into the plastic chair he’d positioned at her bedside, retrieving a pink blanket from where it fell on the floor.

“Did you...have you been here all night?” She furrowed her brow in confusion, finding the pain med button and pressing it gratefully.

He responded with a sheepish smile and a shrug. “Figured you shouldn’t be alone when you woke up.”

A flood of warmth went through her body at that comment. She blamed it on the meds. “The fact that you’re here and not three sheets to the wind with some groupie isn’t a great sign,” she cocked an eyebrow. “I take it we did  _ not _ make it to the World Series?”

The sour expression told her all she needed to know, and she let out a groan before staring up at the ceiling. “Great. My shitty fielding skills cost us a shot at a ring.”

Mike huffed out a laugh at that and shook his head. “No, you can thank a couple Salvamini errors for that, bad offense, and a particularly embarrassing Buster Posey grand slam,” he winked at her. “It’s an even year, Baker. At least we lost to the inevitable World Series champs.”

She let out a soft laugh in response, but let it die down to soft stillness. During their time as friends and teammates, Ginny and Mike had mastered all kinds of different silences. There was the comfortable, sweet silence of the late night phone call. There was the tense, angry silence of a bad call or a late shake off. There was the heated, crackling silence of a late night visit.

But this silence? This was another thing altogether. This was the soft, real silence of words left unsaid. The silence that permeates a room when you both want to speak, but saying it aloud would change everything you’d worked so hard to build, so hard to keep intact. It was the silence that comes from forcing down every emotion into your subconscious and willing yourself to ignore it for far too long.

Apparently, Mike decided he’d had enough of the silence.

“What if I retire?”

It was a non sequitur, seemingly out of nowhere, but Ginny froze, turning her head very slowly to look at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Not this year. I still want one more shot at a ring. But what if I announced at the beginning of the season that I’ll hang up my mask at the end of next year?”

“What about it?” She chose her words carefully, not wanting any part of this left up to chance or misinterpretation.

“Would a deadline make you bend your no ballplayers rule?” And then, after a beat. “For me?”

And there it was. 5 months of beating around the bush. 5 months of stolen conversations, memorable kisses. 5 months of pretending they didn’t want every part of this.

“I thought you were ‘a fucking mess’,” she repeated his words from that night in July, after the Nike party.

“I am,” he nodded in agreement. “I am a fucking mess. But I’m a fucking mess for you, Baker.”

There was a moment where Ginny thought this must be a morphine dream. She’d been envisioning Mike Lawson saying something akin to those words since she was 17-years-old and first discovering how her body worked. And to have him there, next to her hospital bed, sleeping in a hard plastic chair just so he could be there for her when she woke up, it reeked of every cheesy chick lit novel she’d ever read.

But the look on his face was no dream. It was a mix of fear and apprehension of having laid it all out on the table, and Ginny felt her heart start to swell at just the sight of him. Good thing they were in a hospital.

She could think of every reason why she should say no to this. He was 13 years her senior. He had been her childhood idol. They had a whole season left to play together. But that  _ look _ sealed the deal, and with a soft smile, she said the horrible, messed up, first thing that came to her mind.

“Okay.”

His grin and responding deep, sensual kiss were more than enough to make her confident in her decision. 

  
Mike Lawson was a man worth breaking a code for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a little Easter egg in there for peavyfangirl. So Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> This ending scene is the shortest part. But I figure all’s well that ends well. (I just made that up… ;) )


End file.
